Young child returned cuddling a cat or dog, say, or rabbit (6)
I believe the answer is:
tapeti
'rabbit' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'young child returned cuddling a cat or dog' is the wordplay.
'young child' becomes 'it' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'returned' is a reversal indicator.
'cuddling' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are cuddled or held).
'cat or dog' becomes 'pet' (I've seen this before).
'it' back-to-front is 'ti'.
'a'+'pet'='apet'
'ti' placed around 'apet' is 'TAPETI'.
'say or' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for tapeti that I've seen is " Rabbit".)