Don’t look at the car. Don’t look at the tan. Want to know what an Angelino is really made of? Look at his dog.

Everyone thinks that LA is a city where you are generally defined by the car you drive. People who drive Priuses, for instance, are supposedly gentle, eco-friendly guys, but once you’ve been broadsided by a lime green hybrid doing 40mph you learn to think twice about how to take the measure of a man. A better barometer by which to judge my fellow residents of the "City of Angels" is to look at what’s on the end of the leash. In my experience, a dog is meant to fill that strange puzzle piece-shaped hole in each of our souls, and the breed tells you exactly what shape the puzzle piece is. (In the interest of full disclosure: I don’t own a dog, and it’s really only for one reason, I barely contain the capacity to take care of myself let alone another living thing.) Still, here are some of the dogs – with owners attached – you’ll meet on your next visit.

His perfectly coiffed blond hair seems to stay in place without so much as a noticeable drop of product. There are no scuffs on this guy’s Prada shoes and certainly no dog hair on that blue blazer he somehow renders hip. How could he have a phobia to committed relationships when he’s maintained such constant devotion to his golden retriever, Hannah? In fact, if he really were a misogynist then why the female dog? Or at least that’s the argument his many one-night stands repeat to themselves as they make the drive of shame home on Sunday mornings through the peaceful hills looking out over Sunset Boulevard.

The crease marks in his selvedge denim are fixed with such a fine patina that we have to believe he sweats in artisanal batches. His plaid flannel is aged to such a burnished hue that you might almost mistake him for an actual lumberjack. But he did not go $85,000 in debt on an art school degree to be mistaken for a blue-collar worker. That’s why you’ll always find his French bulldog sporting a jaunty bowtie prancing along beside his sparkling Red Wings as he dances across the sidewalk outside Silver Lake’s clubbiest coffee shop, LAMILL.

Look, all you size queens, lest you think he’s overcompensating for a meager endowment with those six tons of rippling orange musculature stripling out of his running shorts, he wants you to know he’s got nothing to prove or to hide. Maybe it’s impossible to tell what he’s packing between those 35in thighs, but he doesn’t care. That’s why, when he’s done pumping iron on Venice Beach, he slaloms down the boardwalk, dodging the chainsaw jugglers and incense vendors, while brandishing his miniature Doberman Pinscher with so much unabashed pride.

When her reality TV producer husband plucked her out of her menial – albeit somewhat fulfilling job – as a receptionist and delivered her into a six-bedroom manse overlooking the ocean in the Pacific Palisades, she was saved! But now that the kids are in private school for most of the day, she feels it’s time to give back. Sure the Mercedes ML350 is always full of dog beds and bulk bags of Puppy Chow, but it’s a small price to pay for saving these mutts from a much worse fate. Hey, someone once did it for her; it’s the least she can now do for them.

When he was still working the San Fernando Valley comedy clubs of North Hollywood, he dreamt of being on a TV series shooting at one of the nearby studios. Today his baby-faced looks and blind ambition help him dominate the ratings as the host of some insipid prime-time talent show, yet he still feels the need to dominate the dog park. Befriend him at your peril, as the overly aggressive pooch is a dog-whistle away: beneath his poodle-like TV persona lurks a restless mastiff.

When he agreed to get a family dog, he made everyone promise that this would not be his responsibility. He already has enough on his plate. But, as fate would have it, he now has to wake up an extra half an hour early so he can walk the mutt before he makes the kids’ breakfast, gets them dressed, fills their lunch buckets and drives them to school so he can make it to his desk at a small production company (where he has still miraculously managed to hold down his job). Sure, it’s a lot to ask him to get up at 5.30am so Adele can get in her half-hour walk through this sleepy LA burb but, as it turns out… those are now the only 30 minutes of peace he’s likely to get all day.

Sure he sold his logarithm to the Man and now actually works for the Man, but in his mind he’s still really his own Man. A free spirit. No, this guy can’t be tied down. He keeps his soul patch and ponytail unruly on purpose. He likes to feel the ocean breeze in his hair as he mountain bikes down the Pacific Coast Highway with his free-wheeling husky bounding beside him. So what if he has to clock in and clock out, and manage an entitled nest of pubescent programmers? He’s still just as loose and free as the man parts riding commando in his Guatemalan shorts.