Extremely gregarious dogs still at home when light fades? (8)
I believe the answer is:
evenings
'when light fades?' is the definition.
(time of day when it gets dark)
'extremely gregarious dogs still at home' is the wordplay.
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'dogs' says to put letters next to each other (dogs can mean follows or chases).
'still' becomes 'even' (synonyms).
'at home' becomes 'in' (similar in meaning).
'gregarious' with its middle taken out is 'gs'.
'even'+'in'='evenin'
'gs' put after 'evenin' is 'EVENINGS'.
(Other definitions for evenings that I've seen before include "Latter parts of the days" , "Ends of days" , "Periods before nightfall" , "when night watchmen appear" , "pms" .)