Dog's died in crash (7)
I believe the answer is:
collide
'crash' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dog's died in' is the wordplay.
'dog' becomes 'collie' (collie is a kind of dog**).
'died' becomes 'd'.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'collie' placed around 'd' is 'COLLIDE'.
(Other definitions for collide that I've seen before include "Come into conflict" , "Run into" , "Clash; conflict" , "Dash together; clash" , "Crash together" .)