Tails From Rainbow Bridge: Can a Good Dog Save a Bad Man

It seems that every week there is a story of an angry man whose life has gone wickedly wrong, and who becomes violent resulting in a wake of death behind him.  It is too simple to say if these men had dogs they would never have become violent but a dog did help one violent man  

Budhi Bryant grew up in a horrific home where the seeds for the abusive man he would become were planted.  His mother was addicted to drugs.  To pay off her debts, she gave Budhi to her drug dealer.  When that transaction occurred Budhi’s father was in jail,  HIs grandfather tracked Budhi down, and he moved in with his aunt and uncle.

When  Budhi was five, his father was released from prison.  He found his son with his grandmother, beat her, and took him.  Budhi’s father abused him for years.  Budhi took comfort in his dog until his father, during a violent episode, beat the dog to death in front of him.

Budhi was removed from his father’s home and put in the foster care system.  He was then returned to his aunt and uncle, but he was unhappy there.  At 16 he joined the Navy.  He made a good friend with a shipmate, but that man was murdered on board, and Budhi was assigned to scrub the scene clean.

He went to Penn State, got a good job, and it looked like he had escaped his violent past, but he was still in the reserves, and he was called up to serve one year in the Middle East as part of a combat search and rescue unit.

He returned home suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which he treated with alcohol.  His work did not suffer, but when he got home, he drank until he passed out.

He was married and had a daughter, who he loved, but the disease, and the drinking pushed him into the past where he became his father.  He got drunk at a wedding, nearly beat his wife to death, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

While in prison he struggled with the knowledge that he had become who he hated.  His wife divorced him.  He gave up on himself and attempted suicide.

He discovered salvation when the prison administration began a program where prisoners would train rescue dogs to become service dogs.  He was given a pit bull named Layla who had been hit by a car and had scars covering her body.  Layla hid under a table when she entered the prison and could have been deemed a failure but, perhaps remembering the dog he had lost as a boy, Budhi refused to leave Layla side until she crawled out from under the table.

Layla was saved and rehabilitated by Budhi, and she did the same for him.  When Layla was placed Budhi got more dogs to train, taking those who had been used for fighting, or had been abused, and got them ready to re-enter society and they did the same for him.

Budhi got a nine to five job when he left prison, but he soon began his own business, Training Buddy, and he dreams of opening his own training center operated by vets and former inmates.

Recently Budhi was challenged by a Labrador-Brittany mix named Ryder and his overmatched owner.  Budhi worked with Ryder but the overactive dog made his owner crazy, and he wanted to surrender Ryder.  Having been given up on several times in his life, Budhi would not do that with Ryder.

Budhi brought Ryder home to live with the abused pitbull who he had adopted and named Layla after the first dog he had saved.  The three of them recently hiked along the Appalachian Trail, three rehabilitated souls with the wide open country lying before them and their limitless future before them.