November real-life claim story

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Nationwide member Teri Moerschel hadn't had a pet in 24 years. It simply hadn't been in the cards, considering her late husband’s severe allergy to dander. But nearly a year to the day after her husband passed, Teri received a gift she never expected.

From leftover to loved

While on a lunch excursion with her cousins, Teri was approached by a woman asking if anyone could give her puppy a home.

"She had big tears in her eyes and she said, 'My husband says I can't take him home.' He was 12 weeks old and he was the only one that didn't sell," Teri says.

One of Teri's cousins agreed to take the puppy, but things didn't quite go as planned.

"We walked in with this dog and [my cousin's husband] said, 'That dog is not staying here,'" Teri recounts, explaining how she wound up with the pup she'd eventually name Bogey. Little did she know how much "that dog" would end up meaning to her.

'I'm glad you're here because no one would believe me'

Later that same afternoon, her cousin insisted they go to visit Teri's husband's grave—and that's when things took a poignant turn.

"So we get to the cemetery. And my husband is buried at the very back. There's lots of stones back there," Teri explains. "I had Bogey probably a whole 16 minutes at that point. I open the gates and I let him down and he started running—and I mean running. I thought, 'Oh no, he's going to run off!' And he ran down, as God is my witness, he ran down and he sat on my husband's stone."

Improbable as it seemed even as she was witnessing it with her own eyes, Teri stood speechless while Bogey sat rooted to the gravestone.

"My cousin Barbara said, 'Look at this, Teri, look at this. That's a sign that you need him,'" recalls Teri. "I told her, 'I'm glad you're here because no one would believe me.' If I had told them, they would think I was a grieving widow or something."