The film starts with the understanding that the makers of the Benji (1974 film) are going to various towns in the U.S. looking for the next dog to play Benji. In a small Mississippi town, a freelance, abusive dog breeder named Hatchett keeps a backyard kennel under poor conditions behind his home. He lives with a young boy named Colby and his mother and is verbally and physically abusive to them, but Colby loves dogs and secretly nurtures a female black dog, Daisy, who is Hatchett's top breeder. He goes to an abandoned house in the neighborhood and takes food and water to the black dog so she can produce milk for her new pups. Hatchett learns of this and accuses Colby of stealing his most prize breeder, then orders Colby to take the black puppies, but abandons a fluffy, light-colored "Mixed-breed dog". Over several months, Colby secretly cares for the puppy, and he grows into the unnamed fluffy dog that will become Benji.