Maintain distance perhaps from castle raising dogs and cats (4,4)

'perhaps from castle raising dogs and cats' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'maintain distance' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'maintain' could be 'keep' ('keep' can be a synonym of 'maintain') and 'keep' is present in the answer.
'distance' could be 'step' (I have seen 'short distance' mean 'step' so perhaps 'distance' could also mean 'step') and 'step' is found within the answer.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?