Stewart Harvard is a 57-year-old native of Columbus, Ga., who spends his free time with his wife Candy, their three corgis and their 25-year-old son, who's working toward his master's degree in public administration at Auburn.
However, when he's working he raises border collies, grass-fed sheep, chickens and turkeys. He also trains collies for herding and German shepherds for police work and races pigeons at Marengo Creek Farms in Crawford, his fully-operative, 265-acre sheep farm and dog boarding facility.
When he's not working from his home at the farm, he's traveling on business to Germany to buy German shepherds to sell to police departments across the nation to work as patrol, search and rescue, drug, tracking and officer protection dogs.
The farm once belonged to Stewart's grandfather, who raised and sold cattle, and Stewart knew from an early age he would want to follow in his grandfather's footsteps as a farmer and work with animals.
"I went one quarter to college, and then I said, 'No, I'm going to go to work,' and I've been working ever since," Harvard said.
Directly out of high school he decided college wasn't the right path for him. After working in one of his father's paint stores for a week and deciding that wasn't right for him either, he went to work for his uncle in his insulation business. Stewart bought the business on a 10-year payment plan and satisfied the plan in a year and a half with only himself and four other men on staff.
After three years in the insulation business, the three fiberglass industries that existed at this time went on strike. Stewart was left without a product. In 1978, he used this as an opportunity to consolidate the company and go to the American Canine Training Centers in Nashville, Tenn., to learn how to be a professional dog trainer.
"I grew up an animal lover... and I always knew that I wanted to do something with animals," Harvard said. "So, I did that and I wanted to get back here. It was my way to get back to this farm."
Harvard's neighbor, Bill Cantrell, owns a horse-training facility directly behind his property, and it was the influence of this man and the success of his animal training business that inspired Stewart to pursue his dream of making a living as a professional dog trainer.
"The key is finding out what you're passionate about and making a career out of it,"Harvard said."I thought that if Bill Cantrell can make a living training horses, and since more people are working on dogs than they're working on horses, why couldn't I make a living training dogs?"
Jade Dwelley, Harvard's former client, said she and her dog benefitted from his training.
"She definitely listens to me better," Dwelley said. "I know how to coax her into getting her to do stuff with the help of what Stewart's taught me."
By the time he was 22 years old, Harvard married Candy and opened a training facility on his family's farm.
"When I came back in 1978, my dad wanted me to go back to rebuilding houses with him, and I said, 'No, I want to be a dog trainer,'" Harvard said. "So, my grandfather loaned me some money to build Harvard's K-9 Training Center, which is the front half of the kennel, and I was able to pay him back in half the time."
Because many people did not board their dogs, Stewart had to gain the community's interest through print advertisement, but his main means of promoting his business was through presentations at local civic clubs.
"Word of mouth has been a major part of our success in advertising for the business," Candy said. "Most of the vets around town in Auburn and Opelika know Stewart on a personal level, as well as a professional level, so they can recommend him to their clients that complain about having trouble with an unruly dog. It's personal connections like that with local police and vet offices that have made us and the farm what we are today."
In 1980, Stewart moved to Illinois to be an apprentice to Arthur Allen, the best border collie trainer in the United States at that time. By 1982, he began traveling to Germany for two weeks at a time to buy dogs to import to buyers in the states.
Through the breeders and trainers he met on these business trips, Stewart got involved with Schutzhund, which is a sport that was developed in Germany to determine the appropriate traits and characteristics of a proper working German shepherd dog. He even served as a judge at several Schutzhund competitions throughout the years in Germany and Brazil, where the sport is also popular.
After years of importing dogs from Germany and training them on his farm, along with the dogs of private owners, Stewart and Candy are finally able to enjoy themselves.
One of their favorite pre-retirement activities is pigeon racing, which includes releasing marked birds from one location and recording how long it takes them to fly home to Marengo Creek Farms via a tracker attached to one of their legs.
Stewart and Candy host border collie competitions and other herding dog competitions on their property, including events for the local Schutzhund Club.
"I still train dogs and import a few from Germany every year, but I'm getting old," Harvard said. "I've done well enough for myself so that I can do and enjoy all of what I've worked so hard to get."
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