Cops: Suffolk police dog leads handler to man found safe

A Belgian Malinois and his police handler found a 76-year-old man missing for two days — he was in the woods behind his home, Suffolk police said Monday.

Robert Barrett, who has dementia, was covered in ticks and disoriented and sunburned in Yaphank when Officer Robert Fanwick and Sparks, his 4-year-old dog, found him at about 5:45 p.m. after a nearly three-hour search Monday, police said.

Barrett was taken by Yaphank Fire Department to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue, where he was treated for nonlife-threatening injuries, police said