U.S. Navy John Douangdara Tribute

Artist Loreen Pantaleone of The K9 Hero Portrait Project will be painting a tribute portrait of U.S. Navy John Douangdara MA1 (EXW).  This will be the first person painted in our program, but John will not be alone.  He will have two fellow U.S. Navy heroes with him, MWD Toby and MWD Bart.

Two years ago Loreen attended an event in Virginia hosted by Navy Seal and author Jason Redman.  Jason helped Loreen surprise a K9 handler with a nomination for a k9 hero painting.  After the event, Loreen decided she should paint a Navy K9 hero that KIA, either Bart or Cairo.  

After researching more on Bart and deciding that he would be the ideal K9 Hero candidate, Loreen reached out to a Gold Star Family leader, Rob Allen.  Rob was able to put Loreen in contact with John's sister, Chan.  

After two years of trying to find the "right" photo of Bart to paint for John's family, Loreen spotted a new photo that circulated around Memorial Day, 2017.  It showed John on the side of a hill, somewhere in Afghanistan with his belgian malinois partner by his side.   This photo ignited the same feeling in Loreen that drove her to start the K9HPP over four years ago.  After excitedly reaching out to Chan again and asking about the photo, it turns out, that photo was her FAVORITE of John as a k9 handler.

After a several week search for the original photo to use as reference, Loreen also learned a great deal more about John's journey as a K9 handler for the Navy SEAL teams, and realized, she had to include both of John's closest K9's, Toby who had been killed in action shortly after transferring, and of course, Bart who was lost along with John and 30 other of our U.S. finest military.

This will be the first painting in the history of the K9HPP to not only include a person, but also another K9.  

This team deserves to be painted together.

*  This painting will be 5 feet long and 4 feet high.  
*  It will be custom framed 
* Estimated time to complete (actual painting time) [phone redacted] hours
*  Painted with fine art Australian acrylics - the best available, and I've tried them all!
*  The painting will go to John's family
*  An engraved solid wood plaque with the names of those who donated towards John's tribute painting will be given to his family along with the painting.
** We will need to transport the painting to John's family for the presentation, date TBD

To see some of Loreen's works for the K9HPP visit www.k9heroportraitproject.org