Gentle little animals belong to the female Italian doctor (5)
I believe the answer is:
lambs
'gentle little animals' is the definition.
'lambs' can be an answer for 'animals' (lamb is a kind of animal). I'm not certain of the 'gentle little' bit.
'belong to the female italian doctor' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'doctor' could be 'mb' (Bachelor of Medicine) and 'mb' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'las' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lambs that I've seen before include "Young sheep" , "See 17" .)