Helena Lewis

A 3x Combat Veteran with 20 years of service in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, Helena Lewis brought Iris home her first tour in Iraq and successfully trained her as her service dog. Her experience as a Veteran and as a service dog handler allowed her to take her nearly 20 years of dog training experience as well as her 7 years as a Certified Peer Specialist and effectively mentor her fellow Veterans in training their service dogs. As a team, Helena and Iris shared an incredible journey together. Towards the end of Iris’ career, they went on to give presentations and lectures to help facilitate better service dog awareness, education and understanding to various businesses, schools, hospitals, and organizations before Iris’ retirement in 2019. Helena acquired Riker after Iris’ passing in 2020. They moved to Wisconsin in 2021 where they went through Patriot K9’s of Wisconsin’s service dog training program and graduated in June of 2022. Helena is now an AKC CGC Evaluator, and she and Riker are now helping more Veterans through Patriot K9s of Wisconsin.