Try to give water to a wild animal (7)
I believe the answer is:
gorilla
'wild animal' is the definition.
'try to give water to a' is the wordplay.
'try' becomes 'go' (both can mean an attempt).
'to give' says to put letters next to each other.
'water' becomes 'rill' (rill is a kind of water).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'go'+'rill'+'a'='GORILLA'
(Other definitions for gorilla that I've seen before include "The biggest ape" , "Chest-beating primate" , "Ape - aggressive muscleman" , "Heavy" , "brutal man" .)