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Shorten lead of Newfoundland approaching pet right outside (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

truncate

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'shorten' is the definition.
(truncating is a kind of shortening)

'lead of newfoundland approaching pet right outside' is the wordplay.
'lead of' says to take the initial letters (I've seen 'leading' mean this).
'approaching pet' becomes 'cat' (I have seen 'Common pet ' mean 'cat' so perhaps 'pet' could also mean 'cat'. I am not sure about the 'approaching' bit.**).
'right' becomes 'true' ('true' is associated in meaning with 'right').
'outside' indicates putting letters inside.
The initial letter of 'newfoundland' is 'n'.
'n'+'cat'='ncat'
'ncat' going within 'true' is 'TRUNCATE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for truncate that I've seen before include "Shorten by cutting off the top" , "Make shorter by cutting off" , "Lop" , "Dock" , "Cut short" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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