Transport properties of dense fluids are fundamentally challenging, because the powerful approaches of equilibrium statistical physics cannot be applied. Polar fluids compound this problem, because the long-range interactions preclude the use of a simple effective diameter approach based solely on hard spheres. Here, we develop a kinetic theory for dipolar hard-sphere fluids that is valid up to high density. We derive a mathematical approximation for the radial distribution function at contact directly from the equation of state, and use it to obtain the shear viscosity. We also perform molecular-dynamics simulations of this system and extract the shear viscosity numerically. The theoretical results compare favorably to the simulations.