Dr. Stewart Hilliard
Dr. Stewart Hilliard began his life’s work—breeding and training dogs—as a youth in Colorado in 1979. He started in the German working dog tradition, competing with his dogs in Schutzhund. Then in the mid-1980’s he travelled to Europe and studied Ring Sport and KNPV— becoming one of the earliest importers of working-bred Belgian Malinois to the US— and in 1987 he established French Ring Sport on American soil, serving as the first president of the American Ring Federation.
After 10 years of intensive training of companion and working (sport and law enforcement) dogs, Stewart enrolled in the graduate Psychology program at the University of Texas, receiving his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience in 1998. Subsequently Dr. Hilliard accepted a post-doctoral position with the United States Army Military Working Dog Veterinary Service at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where he founded working dog breeding programs for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), and performed extensive research on the use of working dogs to detect biological and chemical threat substances. In 2004 Dr. Hilliard joined Lackland’s 341st Training Squadron, which is tasked with providing the hundreds of trained Military Working Dogs (MWDs) required by US Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy forces around the world.
During his career in the DoD MWD Program, Dr. Hilliard served as the Chief of the MWD Training Course, MWD Logistics, MWD Procurement, and MWD Training Evaluations. He advocated for and led major reforms in DoD working dog operations— revising and formalized MWD training and procurement evaluations, and writing the DoD manuals for substance detection and obedience training. Dr. Hilliard presently manages the DoD Military Working Dog Breeding Program, now in its 25th year of supplying working dogs to conventional and special US military forces, as well as the US Department of Homeland Security and many civil law enforcement agencies.
In the course of his 40-year career Dr. Hilliard travelled extensively, teaching working dog training seminars and becoming known for his unique ability to integrate scientific data and theory with the needs of practical dog trainers. He also helped many dozens of private dog owners train their pets and remedy behavior problems, including severe animal- and human-directed aggression. He is the author of a large number of technical reports, papers published in scientific journals, and videotapes and lectures made for working dog practitioners, as well as his 1991 book about Schutzhund, co-written with Susan Barwig. In 2023, he began the Kynology project, dedicated to providing cutting-edge scientific and practical education to professional and amateur dog trainers from all disciplines, including the pet dog training industry. As he did when he was 19 years old, Stewart Hilliard still works with leash in hand nearly every day of his life.
