Leon Alter (American, born in Canada) and Chris Beken (Belgian) both ex-servicemen have long been friends here in the Dominican Republic.
Leon Alter works as Co-founder at Crime stoppers Dominican Republic and chief safety at DDT Events.
Chris does some presswork for Sosúa-News, is owner of Venga beach in Sosua and works part-time as a manager at Hotel Don Andres.
With the disappearance of Patrick Brown several weeks ago here in Sosúa, Léon has been busy in the search for Patrick along with the SAR team of Fuerza Area and the Civil Defence.
Leon and Chris
After six days, Patrick Brown was found thanks to Leon.
The family of Patrick decided to donate 2 SAR dogs to the SAR Team Fuerza Area Puerto Plata to thank them for the efforts they made to find him.
Thanks to Chris, Leon was contacted by a friend of Chris in Miami who trains K9 dogs, namely Robby Hermans who was a soldier with Chris in Belgium.
SAR dogs are primarily for the detection of people and weapons.
These two dogs will be flown to Puerto Plata on 23 July.
The handover to La Fuerza Area, to General Richard Vasques Jiménez will happen on July 25th.
The trainer of these dogs will stay a while in the DR to train 4 people to work with these dogs.
The price tag of these dogs is very high, at 10000 US dollars.
But the story of the lost Patrick and through the donation of the Brown family from Otawa, also the K9 wanted to do something and delivers the dogs for half the price.
Leon and Chris are happy with this development, and the SAR team of Fuerza Area in Puerto Plata and the Civil Defence are pleased to be able to work with these dogs in the future.
Thanks to the Brown family from Ottawa.
Chris Brooks
