THESE VERY HOT summer days, with suburban greenery and central air providing more than the usual barriers, if you want quality time with the neighbors, you've got to get out early -- 6:00 a.m. is just about right -- to meet and greet their dogs and catch up on all the news in these animals' fast-moving social lives.

There's Chip. (Names have been changed here not to protect the innocent -- the dogs -- but their at times not-so-innocent owners.) Chip's a football-sized being with four very short legs and, as is typical of bichon frises, a head that's slightly larger than proportionate and a smile that's crooked, wise and funny at the same time. He's got white tight curls, of course, and dark lipid eyes that smartly recognize familiar faces. And once he does, he invariably strains at his thin leash until he is allowed to run up and happily stand on his hind legs with his front paws on your shins to get petted.

Spotting Chip being walked down the street, we always make a big show of calling out his name loudly, no matter the distance. Then, in mock dismissiveness, we make a much quieter, almost begrudging display of saying hello to his owners -- as if they're secondary.

It's a little joke. They get it. After all, Chip comes first in their house, too. We share smiles over this bit of theater, even though it's probably getting worn out.

Then there's Baron, a beautifully chocolate cocker spaniel, only a year old and almost as friendly as Chip, though in the less sprightly and more solid way of his breed. Baron, his owner is quick to relate, is out of North Carolina and from a very refined line but doesn't have the temperament problems that over-breeding sometimes produces. Baron's also been to "puppy school" and regularly goes off to some kind of dog day camp -- all to make sure that he keeps up his socialization skills. That way, the person at the end of his leash says, when they travel and leave him at kennels, it's not so traumatic for all involved. Good dog, that Baron.

We could go on.

There's a seemingly slothful black lab -- with some age on him and a belly rivaling that of a lot of middle-aged males, including his owner's -- being led down the street with all the joy of a jogger dutifully putting in his time.

And then there's Dolly, another dark Cocker, who sometimes visits a family up the hill. She lives to periodically bolt free and run wild all over everyone's lawns with everyone from her house chasing and screaming after her in Keystone Cops fashion. That is, until a certain 10-year-old from down the hill shows up to calmly corral Dolly back into her constrained life. The unflappable 10-year-old is the neighborhood's "dog whisperer."

All of this is good, even if Chip did jump out of character the other day and momentarily bark loudly -- or as loudly as a football-sized being can bark -- at a passing runner that, apparently, he did not know nor like very much.

Look around the neighborhood. There's a lot to potentially divide us -- newborns and retirees, newer McMansions and smaller brick ranchers, those expensive SUVs and old clunkers carefully being nursed along. And that's to say nothing of all the real differences among us.

But this time of year, just as the big trees shield us from each other, the dogs are a glue that binds some of us. Or as one of the other neighbors up the hill succinctly explained when we first moved in: "If you get along with the dogs, you get along with the people."