DeKalb couple wants change in their neighborhood after their dog hit, killed by car

DeKALB – Kayla Friedman and Keagon Larsen share something powerful in common: a love for Rose, their German short-haired pointer.

With the personality of what they describe as “high energy”, the DeKalb couple lamented on the Oct. 7 loss of their dog.

“My favorite word to describe her was crackhead,” Larsen said. “I’m not going to lie. She was my little crackhead because she was small for her breed, but she was high energy, high drive, always walking around, always wanting to play. But then, at the end of the night, she turned it off and would turn into the biggest cuddle-bug. She had the weirdest personality ever.”

Friedman and Larsen took to a recent City Council meeting to air their concerns and advocate for change in their neighborhood in the wake of losing their four-legged family member.

Rose died in an Oct. 7 crash after she was struck by a motorist who was traveling along Moluf Street, the couple said.

During the council meeting, Friedman recounted that day.

“Three weeks ago unfortunately, we lived through one of the worst days of our lives and a vehicle down our road hit and killed our dog,” Friedman said. “Unfortunately, some of our neighbors had to witness the whole accident.”

In an interview with Shaw Local News Network, Friedman recounted how she and Rose had made it home from work around 6:15 p.m. She recalled that there was still daylight at the time and how some of their neighbors were out and about in their yards.

“I was just coming home, and [Rose] hasn’t gone all day,” Friedman said. “She needed to use the restroom. So, I let her out of the vehicle. She went to go into the yard.”

Friedman said she and Larsen live together in a townhome equipped with both front and side yards where Rose would often roam like a hunter without a leash.

“She was well-trained,” Friedman said. “He’s had her since she was a puppy at 13 weeks. We used an E-collar on her. With that, he does take her hunting. He does take her and do what she was bred to do. He’s gone pheasant hunting with her since she was a puppy. So, she was very well-trained, very well-mannered off leash. When we had her outside, she always had her collar on. We always paid very close attention to her. We watched her as closely as possible to make sure that she didn’t leave her boundaries. She learned her boundaries very quickly.”

On this particular day, Friedman recalled going to retrieve the mail from her mailbox. She said that what happened next, shook her.

“The next thing I know, she starts running and unfortunately she ran into the street,” she said. “When I tell people the story, I tell them it was like slow-motion, but it all happened so fast in my mind. I stood shocked for a second and then I realized what happened. I didn’t know I said anything. The next thing I know is I’m throwing down everything in my hands onto the ground and running over to her.”

Larsen said he was preparing dinner as he normally does when he began to wonder if Kayla and Rose were home. He said he overheard some of the commotion from outside and darted out the front door with a butter knife in hand.

“As soon as I jumped off the porch to get down the sidewalk, that’s when I saw that Rose was under the car,” Larsen said. “I threw everything out of my hands in the front yard and just ran over there. I didn’t have shoes. I was just in socks and a hoodie. I ran out there and dove under the car to see what was going on and that’s when I saw that she really wasn’t moving much or anything. So, I basically had to drag her out from the under the car because she was still so far under it and brought her over to the driveway.”

Larsen said their veterinarian who they took Rose to visit in the immediate aftermath of the crash confirmed Rose was dead.

Friedman said they are not interested in pursuing any charges against the individual who they believe is responsible for hitting their dog.

Larsen said they don’t recall the license plate number for the motorist.

“I didn’t even recognize a color,” Larsen said. “That’s how tunnel vision I was.”

During the council meeting, Friedman made a public plea for help on this matter.

“Our first idea is that we have more patrols up and down the neighborhood,” Friedman said. “We have personally called with our story and have seen an increase of it, but we’d still like it to be a more consistent thing. Other ideas we have come up with is speed trap signs posted, or more speed limit signs, or a stop sign, or yield signs around the crossroads of Moluf Street and Jasmine Street.”

DeKalb Deputy Police Chief Jason Leverton said the police department has done some directed patrols in the neighborhood where DeKalb police officers are assigned to an area for a set period of time with the primary focus of doing traffic enforcement. He said they do this all over town.

In this particular neighborhood, about 25 to 30 traffic tickets have been issued since April 2024, police said.

Leverton said the police department hopes that with increased traffic enforcement and the speed trailer that was installed recently to have reduced traffic incidents, but authorities won’t know that for sure for another week or two.

Friedman stressed that she and Larsen merely want to make a difference in the community.

“We don’t want any incident to happen to anyone else,” she said. “We went through this tragedy and it stinks. ... The worst thing I have ever been through in my life and I think he can agree with that. It was a horror. It was a terrible thing, but we care a lot about our neighbors, a lot about their kids. We want them to be safe and be able to be out in the yards and be [able to] ride their bikes safely, get to the bus stop safety by crossing the street. We just want to make a difference in that aspect because it hurt us. I can’t imagine someone else going through it.”

Larsen said it meant a lot to him to see how the community rallied around him and Friedman in the wake of what happened to Rose. He said he always figured that the people who lived in his neighborhood weren’t hugely social.

“I kind of figured that’s how the neighborhood was because it wasn’t a very social neighborhood until sadly all of this happened,” he said. “I mean, after that [incident,] we can go over to the neighbors and just hang out. I think it really changed our perspective of the neighborhood. They’ll do what they can for their neighbors. It definitely meant a lot to see the support.”