Animals have joined a goddess (7)
I believe the answer is:
demeter
'a goddess' is the definition.
(I know that Demeter is a goddess)
'animals have joined' is the wordplay.
'animals' becomes 'deer' (type of animals).
'have' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'joined' becomes 'met' (meeting is a kind of joining).
'deer' placed around 'met' is 'DEMETER'.
(Other definitions for demeter that I've seen before include "Olympian" , "Greek goddess of agriculture" , "Divine female" , "Ancient Greek deity of fertility" , "Gr. goddess of agriculture, mother of Persephone" .)