Scary wild dog almost trapping relation (8)
I believe the answer is:
daunting
'scary' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'wild dog almost trapping relation' is the wordplay.
'wild dog' becomes 'dingo' (dingo is a kind of wild dog).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'trapping' is an insertion indicator.
'relation' becomes 'aunt' (aunt is a kind of relation**).
'dingo' with its final letter removed is 'ding'.
'ding' enclosing 'aunt' is 'DAUNTING'.
(Other definitions for daunting that I've seen before include "Making afraid or discouraged" , "Scary" , "tending to cow" , "Intimidating, discouraging" .)