Crossword Genius

With nothing inside him, the dog chews a chop (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

pooch

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'with nothing inside him the dog chews a chop' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.

'nothing inside him the dog chews a chop' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'nothing' could be 'o' (looks like zero - 0) and 'o' is found in the answer.
an anagram of 'chop' is 'poch' which is present in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for pooch that I've seen before include "Doggy" , "Dog (colloq.)" , "one of our best friends" .)

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