The Country Comes With a Cost: A Hard Lesson in Tick Prevention

People romanticize country living. And I get it—wide open spaces, the stillness of nature, the sound of crickets in the evening, the freedom of land underfoot. But there’s a side no one really talks about. The kind that doesn’t show up in Pinterest boards or dreamy Instagram reels. The kind that sucker-punches you when you least expect it. This week, our foster dog Kali went in for her regular check-up. We were nervously hopeful, bracing for news about her heart and hips—areas we’ve been monitoring closely. But we were completely blindsided when the rescue told us she tested positive for Lyme disease. From this year. From our property. Despite being on medication, it wasn’t the right one. The preventative we used didn’t cover deer ticks—Advantix, we learned too late, does not protect against the very tick that infected her. There’s no cure for Lyme. No pill to make it disappear. Just management. Monitoring. Hope. But nothing—not the diagnosis, not the guilt, not even the overwhelming heartbreak of hindsight—compared to the moment we had to break the news to Landon. That’s his baby. His constant. His sidekick in every sense of the word. You see, Landon has known more loss than any child should. In a single year, he lost all three of his beloved bulldogs. And then came Kali—fierce, goofy, devoted Kali. A dog who shares Winston’s soul but has her own spark. She lives for summer break, for Landon’s laughter, for the school bus doors opening so she can bolt into his arms and run like no one’s watching. Their bond is pure magic. And telling him she’s sick… that it’s chronic… that we missed something—felt like a betrayal we couldn’t fix. As a parent, there’s no worse task than watching your child come undone and knowing there’s nothing you can do to make it better. We’d carry that pain for them if we could. Every second of it. But country living doesn’t give you that choice. It gives you beauty—and heartache. Sunsets—and deer ticks. The dream—and the damn reality. I’m writing this not to spiral into sadness, but to remind every pet owner, every parent, every fellow rural family: be diligent. Not all preventatives are created equal. Advantix doesn’t cover deer ticks. We thought we were doing enough—we weren’t. And Kali is paying for that mistake. She’s still with us. Still playful. Still running when that bus pulls in. But now we watch a little closer. We worry a little more. And we cherish every moment in a way only those who’ve faced real loss can understand. Country life comes with its price. And sometimes… it breaks your heart.