Halo

Uh, sun dogs, otherwise known as, uh, parhelia, are basically, like, these ice crystal halos.

Cirrus cl- cirrus clouds containing hexagonal ice crystals can refract sunlight into colored patches.

Halos apparently, um, apparent secondary suns, so, like, you get the s- you get the sun and then, like, the reflecting light will make it look like there are either several halos around the sun or, like, one ring around it.

And, um, it says it's extremely rare, but it, uh, the National Weather Service describes this as, um, this precise mechanism.

So it's not definite that a, uh, sun dog is what they saw, but it definitely would be some sort of phenomenon that most people don't see ever in their lifetime.