Commander Laurence Francis McDonald

KC: When this was just an experiment, did you have to volunteer your time for the training with the dog?

LM: Yes. It was all volunteer. We transported our dog to and from our homes to work in our personal car.

At that time we had no extra clothing allowance because the dog, you know if it was a day like today where it’s wet and muddy, your uniform would look terrible and smell terrible because of the oil on a dog. Finally, we got a clothing allowance and then the city started to purchase dog food for us. They did provide a couple of kennels outdoor at the dog pound on Beulah Lane [at Jessamine] where we could put our dogs.

But most of us were so fascinated by our dogs being at home. I think it was good for the dog to have a part of a family life, so that they were with a normal home setting where they have kids and neighbors and other dogs around, they could relax and be themselves. We started out with doing a lot of running our own costs on that, but it was a wonderful experience. Later, I came back into being charge of the dogs at the new kennel which is on the Water Department property.

KC: What year was this?

LM: Maybe 1975. I was there for several years. It was very enjoyable, because now we had some professional trainers. There, again, for this department is training crazy, or has been. We developed our own training personnel. Jim Long [9] was the head trainer. Jim knows dogs from top to bottom. He is very well respected. We’ve won National Trials. He was an officer. He’s retired now. Again, the training. It’s all in training, how you condition people and even animals to conform to an acceptable standard.

KC: How did you feel when McAuliffe came in?

LM: We were devastated because we knew the value and to have dismissed the organization on just some personal feelings for the previous administrator. There were other things, I don’t remember all that went out the window that were Proetz ideas. Proetz came out of the juvenile unit and he was very much for juveniles. His heart was in the right place.

McAuliffe, remember I said in the earlier interview that our department was more a detective investigative. He came out of the mold of being an investigator and he was in charge of homicide for years. So, he didn’t, I don’t think, fully understand the significance of how important patrol was. It was maybe secondary. That’s another example of not knowing how valuable a tool can be to aid that patrol person. They are the key to every police department.

KC: Was there a point where your gun belt was put back on the uniform when you had the dogs?

LM: Yes, finally. [Laughs] It was crazy. But we sold the public so well because of the procedures that we talked about, that today our officers, I don’t know if they do that, but the dogs are accepted by the citizens. I don’t know about nationwide, but in Saint Paul rarely do they get complaints. Even on a dog bite, people say we know about the dogs, they’re trained and if you got bit you deserved it.

KC: If a dog bit, it bit because someone was fleeing?

LM: Either fleeing or attacking you or something like that. Or was in a building illegally where you made the announcement to come out, you always give them a choice and if they don’t come out you tell them you’re going to send the dog in.

KC: And then the dog has authority to bite?

LM: That’s right. I remember that we used to get a call, it used to be the Farwell Osman & Kirk Building [160 East Kellogg Blvd.], where the welfare office is now, across from the old Post Office on Kellogg. When an alarm came in there, on any other large building, we used to have to go down and diagonally cover the building so you could see [anyone exiting the building]. Then we would send officers in there and make an intensive search of the building, very, very time consuming. When you left you weren’t real sure because of the nature of some of these buildings, were so difficult to search and be sure, that when you left you weren’t sure whether the burglar was still in there. Sometimes we knew because after the alarms were reset, the alarm went off because the burglar got out. So we knew that we weren’t totally successful. You can search a building like that today with a dog in such a short time frame or you get the cooperation of the burglar to come out when you tell him that you’re going to send the dog in, that that’s the time saver, why make more work out of it when you can reduce the work.

KC: Did you start using the dogs in buildings like that?

LM: We started them in the schools. We would hide in the school building and make the search, Mr. Breedahl thought it was the best thing that ever happened. We had a master key for every school in the city of Saint Paul.

KC: Did you ever find any burglars in the schools?

LM: No, but we found them in, you know the old Miller Hospital, we used to train in there, too. One night we were going to search, and we were searching and all of a sudden, we didn’t think there was anybody in the building first of all, because I ran the security there for awhile and we had it all boarded up. But they loosened the board and put it back. The dogs went crazy on one end, he was running down, I think it was the fifth floor, and we heard all this barking and some guy yelling down there. It was some street guy that got in there. We didn’t know it, but the dog knew it. It was unbelievable.

We would rustle, most of the time, out some street person that would want to just be there sleeping. We had occasions like that, but it did a wonderful job of preventing the burglaries because people knew that that dog might be there.

There was a restaurant on Snelling Avenue and I don’t remember the name of it, but it was up near Scheffer, and this guy had some repeated burglaries. John Mercado said “Larry, why don’t you go up there and plant the place.” That meant that you’d go in there with your dog and with a sawed off shotgun and with the old radios that they had, you had to carry them in a suitcase. I said, “Now, the owners not coming back?” John said, “It’s all set.” What happened, I’m sitting in this restaurant, the dog and I. And about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning I hear someone at the back door and finally I heard the door open and somebody saying “Are you in there? Are you in there?” And, who is it, the owner, he catered a wedding somewhere and was bringing in the food that was leftover. Let me tell you, if he’s alive today, he can tell you that his heart almost stopped when he confronted myself and that dog. Fortunately, the dog didn’t bite him, but he must remember that to this day, if he’s alive. He should never have come back, and he was told not to come back, but he thought he’d put the food in there.

KC: So when you heard this you responded?

LM: Well, yes, I waited because I thought this could be a burglar, because some of them have keys, you know, an employee will come in and steal the place blind, so we just waited until he got in. When that dog lunged at him, I tell you, he sat down. I bet he spent fifteen minutes, he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed he was so frightened. I thought I was going to have a heart attack on my hands, he was going to have a heart attack. He’ll never come into a building again without [authorization]. He’ll listen to instructions the next time. Those are some of the stories that I have.

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[9] James Brooks Long was appointed patrolman January 23, 1971; and retired August 14, 1998.