Getting back tailless dog by a lake (9)

I believe the answer is:

retrieval

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'getting back' is the definition.
(retrieval means getting something back)

I don't understand the remainder of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for retrieval that I've seen before include "Getting information from a file" , "Salvage" , "Action of recovery" , "Extraction of data from a file (computing)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Daily Express.

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