An 8-year-old boy named Ricky finds a puppy on the side of the road and decides to adopt him without his parents’ permission. Mom and dad agree to let the puppy, Tako, stay under one condition: he must be a good dog and always follow the rules. Tako wants to stay with the family more than anything; but when a competing businessman sets out to secretly sabotage the family’s bakery, the only way Tako can protect them is to break the rules. Ultimately, Tako and Ricky’s family discover sometimes you have to be a little bit bad to be very good.

A mysterious thief is stealing from the Lee family household and bakery and it’s up to little puppy Tako to catch the culprit. Tako succeeds in exposing Allie, a feisty cat, but when she gets thrown out of the house, Tako begins to have second thoughts about the consequences of his actions. Is Allie the cat irredeemably “bad” or is there more to her motivation than meets the eye? Tako may be the only one who can uncover the truth, but to do so he’ll have to fight the vicious river rats and ultimately come to terms with his own preconceptions.