Pomeranian swimmer named Mark? (5)
I believe the answer is:
spitz
'pomeranian' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'swimmer named mark?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'mark?' could be 'pit' (synonyms) and 'pit' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for spitz that I've seen before include "Little dog" , "Pomeranian dog" , "eg Samoyed" , "Mark --, US swimmer" .)