Therapeutic dog had food around four (8)
I believe the answer is:
curative
'therapeutic' is the definition.
(I know that therapeutic can be written as curative)
'dog had food around four' is the wordplay.
'dog' becomes 'cur' (a cur is an aggressive or scruffy dog).
'had food' becomes 'ate' (to eat is to have some food).
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'four' becomes 'IV' (Roman numerals).
'ate' placed around 'iv' is 'ative'.
'cur'+'ative'='CURATIVE'
(Other definitions for curative that I've seen before include "Restoring to health" , "Therapeutic" , "Medicine" , "health-giving" , "Healing" .)