Dog torn apart by the tide (7)
I believe the answer is:
current
'tide' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dog torn apart by' is the wordplay.
'dog' becomes 'cur' (both can mean a despicable person).
'torn apart' becomes 'rent' (past tense of 'rend', to tear or rip).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'cur'+'rent'='CURRENT'
'the' is the link.
(Other definitions for current that I've seen before include "moving mass" , "Flow of electricity" , "Popular" , "Contemporary" , "Flow, of a river say" .)