Tidy up net after hearing about an animal on the loose (10)
I believe the answer is:
straighten
'tidy up' is the definition.
(I know that tidy up can be written as straighten)
'net after hearing about an animal on the loose' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'net' is 'ten' which is within the answer.
'about' could be 'a' (abbreviation in Chambers) and 'a' is found in the answer.
'an' could be 'i' (Roman numeral for one) and 'i' is located in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for straighten that I've seen before include "Remove bends from (something)" , "Adjust" , "Get in line" , "Align correctly" , "put back in order" .)