Dog’s tense and gruff (4)
I believe the answer is:
curt
'gruff' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dog's tense' is the wordplay.
'dog' becomes 'cur' (cur is a kind of dog).
'tense' becomes 't' (abbreviation used in many dictionaries).
'cur'+'t'='CURT'
'and' is the link.
(Other definitions for curt that I've seen before include "Rudely brief" , "Discourteously brief" , "Brief and terse" , "Brusquely succinct" , "Brief and brusque" .)