Bend and shorten the tail (4)
I believe the answer is:
scut
'the tail' is the definition.
(scut is a kind of tail)
'bend and shorten' is the wordplay.
'bend' becomes 's' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'shorten' becomes 'cut' (cutting is a kind of shortening).
's'+'cut'='SCUT'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scut that I've seen before include "Short tail, such as rabbit's" , "Reindeer's tail" , "Cuts into a small tail" , "Deer's tail" , "Short tail of rabbit, deer etc" .)