It’s so cute, my heart hurts a little.

“It’s all fun and games until you break another one of Ingrid’s mugs,” I tell him. “Then you’ll be living on the street, buddy.”

It’s a bluff. If Archie has me wrapped around his pinkie, then he has Ingrid wrapped around his whole paw. The first week we had him, nearly every one of my sixty minutes awake was spent looking at pictures and videos Ingrid took of him the previous day.

Look at this one of him asleep on the couch.

Look at this one of him playing with my keys.

Look at this one of him peeing on the carpet.

I spend the next minute wrestling on the floor with him, chasing him on all fours. He hides under the bed, and I drag him out and plop him on my chest. I tickle his little head, then stand up with him in the crook of my arm.

“All right, you little troublemaker, let’s go find your dad and point out his lack of parental control.”

We walk out of my childhood bedroom — and by childhood, I mean I lived there until I was twenty-seven — and make our way down the hall to my father’s room.

My father isn’t there, and with him gone, Murdock — my father’s gigantic English mastiff — is sprawled across the bed diagonally, his one-hundred-and-sixty-pound frame taking up nearly half the mattress’s real estate. Lassie is curled up into Murdock’s belly. No doubt young Archibald had been snuggled into the mix before waking up and heading out on his seek-and-destroy mission.

“Hey, dingbats,” I say.

They both stir.

Lassie stretches out his front legs, then slinks to the edge of the bed.

Murdock sees Archie in my arms and whimpers.

“Okay, settle down.” I set Archie on the bed, where he quickly scampers to Uncle Murdock.

Murdock licks him a couple times with his enormous tongue, then curls Archie into his body protectively.

“Archie pushed my clock off the dresser,” I tell Lassie.

Meow.

“How many pushes? I don’t know, three.”

Meow.

“He just needs more practice?”

Meow.

“I’m not mad because it took him three tries to push the clock off the dresser. I’m mad because he pushed the clock off the dresser.”

Meow.

“Because, you nitwit, the clock broke when it hit the floor.”

Meow.

“I have no idea how much it cost. My dad bought it for me ten years ago. It tells the temperature and the weather.”

Meow.

“Brookstone? I don’t know, maybe.”

Meow.

“Yes, I will ask him.”

Meow.

“I am not going to go find him and ask him right now.” I close my eyes and wave my hand at him. “Listen, all I’m trying to say is that while you are sleeping, mini-dingbat over there is running amok. You need to discipline him.”