Commander Laurence Francis McDonald

In this excerpt of an oral history interview retired Commander McDonald shares the story of the formation of the original Canine Unit 1958 - 1961

Interviewed December 28, 2005 by Kate Cavett of HAND in HAND Productions

Laurence Francis McDonald

• Appointed Patrolman: July 11, 1955
• Promoted to Sergeant: February 26, 1966
• Lieutenant: January 14, 1971
• Captain: July 5, 1989
• Lieutenant: January 12, 1991
• Captain: August 31, 1991
• Retired: March 31, 1995
• Awarded the Medal of Merit Class B: August 26, 1993

The Interview

KC: Kate Cavett
LM: Larry McDonald

KC: It is Wednesday, December 15, 2005, We are in HAND in HAND’s Office doing an oral history interview for the Saint Paul Police Department. Could you introduce yourself with your name and the rank that you retired from the Saint Paul P.D.?

LM: My name is Larry McDonald and I retired in April of 1995 as a commander.

KC: What year did you come on to the Saint Paul Police Department?

LM: I came on in 1955, April.

KC: Let’s talk about the canine unit. Let’s go way back to the original idea of this could work.

LM: I was flustrated when I first went on the police department, especially, like, I was working on the west side where I first started, and we would get called to a window peeping call or somebody would steal an auto and they would be just maybe a few moments away from us when we arrive. We would search around with our flashlights if it was night with the old flashlights and, of course, a hundred to one the batteries were dead.

I often thought there had to be a better way and the reason I thought there had to be a better way, I had four bachelor uncles that lived down in Rosemount, Minnesota, and they were farmers and they had a lot of the tracking dogs, the black and tan and the red bones. I forget the other breed. We spent a lot of time as kids tracking rabbits and fox and whatever we could track, and then we would track on another, my brothers. So, when I got on the police department I thought this is really dumb because you can get a dog that can track. I had written some letters down south where my uncle had bought dogs and asked them for information about tracking dogs. I thought I was going to do this kind of on my own. Just get a tracking dog because when we were kids we lived on the west side and we had dogs and sheep and things like that. Finally I got wind that some of the dog people said the City of Baltimore was looking to accept police dogs in Baltimore, Maryland. I found out that it was timed when I was getting married on June 7th of 1958. I told my wife we’ll go east on our honeymoon. We went up to Niagara Falls and ended up in Baltimore, Maryland.

We were very well received there and were in the process of deciding whether they wanted to go the British method where the dog would be more of the Labrador type, the big husky-looking dogs that would grab the person in England by the clothing and just knock them down, because England at that time, there were no weapons and they were pretty non-violent criminals. The Americans in Baltimore were looking at a different criminal that had guns and knives and would go forcibly against the police, so they decided to get the dogs that would actually bite a person.

Of course, they researched some military people that had the training because they were training sentry dogs at that time. When we were out there they were talking about it and the sergeant said, “Where are you from?” And, I said, “Saint Paul.” He said, “Gee, we were looking at a guy from, is West Saint Paul near you?” I said, “West Saint Paul . . .”, I was living on the west side and I said, “That’s about a mile and a-half from my house.” So, they gave me the name of a guy by the name of Al Johnson who lived on Gorman Street in West Saint Paul. I couldn’t wait until I got back home.

I was working for John Mercado, who was progressive, too. He knew Bill Proetz [1] at that time, pretty well. John was admired by a lot of people. I told him about the canine dogs and I said, “You know, we should talk to the chief, maybe we’ll get a dog or two.” So, Mercado went to Proetz.

KC: Proetz was the chief?

LM: Bill Proetz, yeah. Bill Proetz thought it was a good idea, he said, “Why don’t you call this Al Johnson, we’ll take him to lunch.” So, we met for lunch one day. Al Johnson told the chief, he said, “You know, your officers will need more training than the dogs.” I thought, oh, boy, here we go. He said, “If you select a couple officers, I’ll pick the dogs, but we’re going to have donated dogs I suppose because we didn’t have any money.” We found three dogs that he approved of. I was one of the people, Ed Buehlman was the other, and Bill Swiger [2]. We were all from Mercado’s tactical unit. We began training with Al Johnson and his partner Bob Gates, both of them were recognized obedience dog trainers here in the Twin Cities.

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[1] William F. Proetz was appointed patrolman March 1, 1937; promoted to sergeant March 16, 1968, detective September 20, 1948, lieutenant December 1949, and chief March 11, 1955; and retired June 12, 1963.

[2] William R. Swiger was appointed patrolman November 1, 1949; and retired June 30, 1976.)

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