Service Dog 'Boogz' Missing in North Brooklyn: Teen Owner Offers $1K Reward

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Former Grand Street resident Julia Edelman, 19, met her service dog Boogz two years ago, when she was just a small puppy.

"She's been by my side every second ever since," Edelman, a student at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, said over the phone Thursday.

The small, white-and-brown, 13-pound dog helps Edelman handle her generalized anxiety disorder — which has made their two-week separation especially devastating, she said.

Boogz went missing from Edelman's former home near the intersection of Grand Street and Manhattan Avenue in East Williamsburg on March 24 , she said, when a team of Flat Rate Moving employees left open a series of doors in her building.

"She was locked up in my bedroom, and I had specifically told them not to open the door," Edelman remembered. "I'm in my bathroom packing up, and I notice she's missing."

"They left every single door open," Edelman said.

Patch has contacted First Rate Moving for comment; we'll update this story if and when we hear back.

But according to Edelman, when she finally got through to an attorney at the company and told him what a "traumatic experience" the move had been, he told her to "remove the word trauma and traumatic from the vocabulary from this discussion" and offered her a $500 refund. (Of the thousands of dollars Edelman and her boyfriend had paid for the move.)

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Edelman has since relocated to Midtown Manhattan. However, she said multiple former neighbors in Williamsburg have told her that within 10 minutes of Boogz going missing, they saw two young men pick her up and walk south toward the affordable-housing complex between Maujer and Scholes streets.

Boogz' owners are now offering a $1,000 reward for her return, no questions asked.

"We don't care what the incentive was," Edelman said. "We just want her back. She's like our kid."

Edelman described Boogz as a "snuggle bug" who's "extremely friendly" and "always wants to be held or sitting on your lap."

The small dog "doesn't like to be left alone," and is on anxiety medication herself, Edelman said.

Anyone with information on Boogz' whereabouts can contact Julia Edelman at (203) 948-6041.