Caddy shag

This former shelter mutt amazes fans while helping his disabled golf-fanatic owner.

By Sally Deneen

Crowds giggle when Dennis Walters’ caddy tees up a golf ball. Caddy Benji Hogan grabs the tiny ball with his mouth and plops it onto the tee.

If Walters sneezes, he fetches a tissue. Benji even answers math questions -- by barking.

The bond between Walters and his rescued 5-year-old Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier mix touches onlookers and longtime friends.

Paralyzed from the waist down since a golf-cart accident in 1974, Walters began doing trick shots in his Dennis Walters Show two years later, determined to make a living in the sport he loves, despite physicians’ predictions he would never golf again.

He and Benji -- named after both the canine film star and golfer Ben Hogan -- log 100,000 miles a year in their motor home to perform at Tiger Woods’ youth golf clinics and at major golf tournaments. In June, Benji will tee up balls at their show at the U.S. Open.

Walters does his part to produce giggles by using unlikely golf clubs in his act, including a crutch, a fishing pole, a tennis racket, and a driver head attached to a rubber hose. He even drives a ball through flames.

When Benji Hogan answers math and other questions from the audience, onlookers are surprised, skeptical, and entertained.

Patti Koch once asked the dog, “In hockey, how many goals are in a hat trick?”

“Bark, bark, bark,” the Terrier replied.

“How many dog biscuits are in a baker’s dozen?” Walters asked. 

“He barked 13 times,” says Koch, a longtime friend and businesswoman in Walters’ town of Plantation, Fla., and a board member of a local humane-society auxiliary group. “He’s not really as much a dog as like a genius trapped in a dog’s body. There’s something very deep about this dog.”

Determined to figure it out, Jo-Anne Roman, director of operations for the Humane Society of Broward County in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., asked a friend to help her watch Walters as he recited questions to Benji. Together, they hoped to catch the golfer sending signals to his dog. Instead, they marveled as Benji independently -- and correctly -- answered questions such as: How many people here are wearing red shirts? What is 20 divided by 10?

“I consciously don’t give him a signal,” Walters says. “I’m not saying that he knows the answer to every single question. But I’m claiming that I probably do, and he somehow [figures it out]. … There’s something about the incredible bond that we have.”

The bond explains why Benji ran alongside the wheelchair as Walters carried the 2002 Winter Olympics torch through the streets of Miami last December.

“He loves his dog more than you can imagine,” Roman says.

Five years ago, Walters and his father visited 45 animal shelters around Florida, some repeatedly, before they found what they sought: a small dog that looked like Benji. “He’s got about 200 fleas on him, he’s got no hair on his tail, and every hair on his head is knotted up,” recalls Walters, who visited the Terrier six times. In the end, he decided against adoption because the dog didn’t give kisses.

When health problems put Benji on the brink of euthanasia, Pets in Distress rescue group took him in and nursed him back to health. A woman from the group, aware of Walters’ search, considered him precisely what Walters wanted. She didn’t know this was the same dog Walters had seen at the shelter. She brought the two together, and the dog jumped on Walters’ lap and kissed him. Walters melted.

Since then, the shaggy pooch has appeared in eight commercials, taken service-dog training with Florida Guide Dogs (as have all of Walters’ previous dogs), and helped open the world to Walters. “I think everyone should have a dog,” Walters says. “But it’s a great thing for a person with a disability. It’s a great way to meet people. Dogs just do so much for you that I could never see living without one.”