Shelter Plus Care Missouri: Fill & Download for Free

Is this normal? If the dog is coming from an abnormally stressful situation, then, “YES” it is normal. Let me tell you about a rescue we did on a 5 yr old shelter dog. His behavior and demeanor were just like your dog's behavior. I know you want to give love to your dog as well as receive love from your dog. You want your dog to be happy living in your family unit, your ‘Pack’. My story will give you hope. At least I believe it will!We always rescue adult dogs from shelters. We haven’t had a puppy since 1990.Our puppy grew up, grew old, then died of old age in 2004. Since then we’ve rescued 3 adult dogs. We love Northern breeds so we look for Husky or Husky mixes. Rescuing adult dogs is very gratifying. They are already house trained and to a ‘T’ …every adult dog we’ve rescued seems genuinely grateful and seems to understand that you saved them giving them a ‘forever’ home thereby freeing them from shelters which are essentially ‘doggy prisons’. Incarceration. Many shelters we’ve visited are like insane asylums with all the dogs barking at once. A din of madness where I could barely stand to be there. Here’s my story.Our puppy, Brando, lived 14 yrs then we lost him in August 2004. My Hunny Bunny wanted to spend time mourning. She refused to talk or think about another dog replacing Brando. As much as I loved ‘Brando’ I needed another dog pronto and it wasn’t about respect for Brando, it was about knowing that there are so many dogs ‘Out There’ in desperate need for a home. I admit, there is some selfishness involved…truth is I love dogs and life is short. Way too short to live for extended periods without a dog in the house. I have a coffee cup that says, “A House Is Not A Home Without A Dog” and I second that notion.It was not about replacing Brando. There will only be ONE Brando, EVER. Dogs are like people. Each one has its own personality. Each one is an individual. I don’t expect to EVER replace a dog I’ve lost…but I do know I will love the next one as much as the last. I always feel that there is another dog out there, just waiting for us, in need of a forever home. Desperate to be adopted so there’s no time to waste. I must get on with it! So I search for the ‘next’ dog!Fast forward; it’s late September and my birthday. Brando’s been gone about a month. Susan’s still in mourning and so am I… truth be told. He liked clip-clopping around the house making noise with his claws on the tiles. I think I heard him many times in the first month he was gone! It’s eerie and haunting. I also think I've heard the tags on his collar jingling around. In fact, I’m sure of it.Anyway, on my Birthday, I took the day off work. Susan says, “So what are you going to do on your day off?” I said, “I’m going to the Humane Society to look at dogs.” She had a horrified look on her face. “Don’t worry!,” I chuckled. “I’m not going there to adopt a dog…I just feel the need to be close to dogs. I just need to be with them today. It’s my birthday and I need some dog lovin’!” Of course, I did have an ulterior motive. I wanted to begin looking for our ‘next’ dog!She was OK with that. So, I went. You know where this is going. I met a dog there who I “Knew” was destined for our home, but I left him there. I had made a promise. I hoped that nobody would adopt him before I could. I took a chance and left him at the shelter. Little did I know, but the truth was, nobody wanted him.That evening I told myself that I would NOT bring up my day at the shelter or the dog I’d met. It was a psychological maneuver on my part. I wanted and needed Susan to take interest on her own if I had ANY chance at all of adopting this dog I met. He was a 5 yr old Husky mix with one blue eye and one gold eye. I waited that evening for Susan to ask me…I knew that she would. I knew that she would be far too curious not to. Sure enough, it happened, “How was your day at the shelter? Tell me all about it!”“Well…I met a lot of dogs…but there was one, in particular, that was special. I think we should go there this weekend. I think you would like to meet him”. To my surprise, she readily agreed without a struggle! I could tell that she had finally accepted that Brando was gone and that she also missed having a canine in the house.That weekend we went to the shelter. The local Milwaukee Humane Society is an awesome shelter. Each animal has its own little compound. Their own space and cannot see or hear one another. Consequently, they are calm and there is no barking insane asylum. No cacophony. Therefore, to be fair (to all the shelter dogs) we met all the dogs that struck our fancy but it was Huckleberry (our eventual name for him) that grabbed our souls. Huckleberry was the dog that I felt was special. I saved him for last…to be the last dog we’d meet and evaluate. Susan especially was overwhelmed by him. Why? Because it was obvious that Huckleberry was sad. He was depressed. Almost as if he had given up on people. He was exactly like your dog!We were ‘assigned’ a shelter representative who spent time with us showing us any dog we wanted. That’s the shelter’s protocol. If you are interested in adopting a dog, you sign in and wait your turn for an available shelter rep who then introduces you, formally, to any dog you want to meet. The shelter has special ‘meeting rooms’ where just you and your rep can meet the dogs, one at a time.When we got to Huckleberry, he told us that he had been in the Shelter for a year! A freekin’ YEAR! That boggled my mind. Milwaukee sends special transport trucks down to Kentucky on a regular basis to snatch dogs from Kentucky because down there, they are ‘Kill’ shelters. So he was part of a group of dogs that they snatched away from Kentucky and trucked them up to Wisconsin. A full year ago.Our rep told us that he had been adopted 3X and each time the families returned him using a different excuse each time. One family said he barked all day. (He NEVER barked but he’d Husky Howl like a wolf when we’d come home from work!) another family said he wasn’t house trained (what a crock of you-know-what!) and the 3rd family said he was a ‘humper’ humping the small children of the household and neighborhood ( ROTFFLMAO!!) NOT!But it was obvious. This would NOT be a fun dog to take home in his current mental state. At least not initially. It would take work. Any family adopting him, taking him home, expecting him to provide entertainment, fetch, play, lick their faces, would be sorely disappointed. This dog needed TLC and a LOT of it! It was very obvious to us. Despite that, we would make the commitment to him in the hopes of changing his paradigm.We met him in a rather large room, just us, the shelter rep, and him. He would not take treats from us. He would not play with any toys. He literally sat there with his back to us! Seriously! With his back to us! This, after meeting dogs that just about leaped into our laps wagging their tails furiously and licking us to death! Susan and I looked at each other and did not need to discuss. I could tell by her face she was not going to leave this dog behind. She knew why I said that this dog was ‘special’. Plus he was a handsome devil with his one blue eye and one gold eye. He had the ‘Husky’ tail, a big fluffy one.Yeah…he was ALOOF…for sure, but that is also part of a Northern breed dog personality. They can be aloof, even with their people. (My current Husky-Malamute, Sky, was described by the shelter I got him from as, and I quote: “THEE most ALOOF Northern Breed dog, we’ve ever seen. So aloof, we thought he was deaf!” Postscript- I would NOT describe him as “aloof” anymore…he had his own ‘shell’ he had to break out of as well)Huckleberry (the shelter named him ‘McGruff’) was a lost soul and a bit emaciated. Enduring 1 year incarcerated in a shelter was creating muscle loss even though the staff regularly walked him outside. He weighed about 55 lbs ‘shelter weight’ when we met him. (after some TLC, he eventually would weigh 85 lbs and BUFF!)When we told our shelter rep we would take Huckleberry despite everything we’d been told and the obvious depression and sadness surrounding this dog, I watched a grown man cry. He was so happy and grateful. Tears just streamed down his face.I think he cried because this guy KNEW that we would NOT be returning him. He knew we were dog people who really loved dogs and that we took the word ‘RESCUE’ seriously and to a whole other level. Returning a dog was NOT part of our lexicon when considering a rescue. We knew what we were getting into and we were ‘in it’ for the long haul.But don’t get me wrong…I understand where people get taken by surprise. Often, it’s just a matter of being an experienced dog person. I’m guessing that those three families who returned him pretty much had no clue he was depressed. Their expectation was a pet that would love them and entertain them. Instant gratification. Canines have been interacting with humans for thousands of years. It’s not always a simple situation. It’s complicated. You really have to be in tune with dogs to know what’s going on with them and knowing the dogs really are different in terms of their personalities and especially what a shelter dog may have gone through prior to winding up in the shelter.The shelter experience for most dogs is just one more bad experience. Even though they have food, a roof over their heads, and medical care they are essentially ALONE and feel TRAPPED. As kind and affectionate as the shelter workers can be, the dogs all know, somehow, that the shelter workers are not ‘their people’…not their pack. They know. They sure as hell know. They know that they are alone and unwanted, at least for now.When we got Huckleberry home, he literally crawled behind a couch hiding between the wall and the couch. He wouldn’t come out. Eventually, he ventured out and I took him for walks every day on a ‘Wilderness Trail’ that was built by Milwaukee County Parks called the ‘Oakleaf Trail’ just a short distance from our home.Still, 2–3 weeks in his new home with daily walks and he still seemed depressed and just surviving. A defeated and depressed dog. At this point I should probably tell you, we had named him, “Buddy” after the bluesman, Buddy Boy Hawkins. It would only be later that he became our “Huckleberry” a.k.a. “Huck” “Huggy” “Huggy Bear” “Hucky-Berry”One crisp fall morning, it’s late October and he’s been with us 5-maybe-6 weeks. I’m walking him on the trail and I’m thinking about him. God, it’s a beautiful fall morning in Wisconsin, trees are in color and dew on the tall grass. There’s a woods on both sides of the trail but probably about 50–75 yds of grass and wildflowers from the trail to the woods. I’m soaking in the beauty of fall in Wisconsin but I’m a little melancholy because ‘Buddy’ is still in a funk. Did I REALLY think 5 weeks with us would erase, what(?), one year plus of shelter life? Whatever else this dog had lived through BEFORE he wound up in a shelter? Even I had unrealistic expectations, I guess.What could I possibly do to change his paradigm? There MUST be something I can do!? A wild thought entered my mind: “Should I? No! It’s risky! NO! YOU MUST NOT DO IT! NO! YOU—MUST—DO—IT!! JUST DO IT! OKAY!” (arguing with myself again!)I stopped, reached down and unclipped his leash. He was finally free. He was really and truly FREE. What would he do? I admit I had fear in me. He’d only been with us a short time and I did NOT feel like he’d bonded with us AT ALL.Just the way you feel about your dog, right now. At least, that’s how I felt, back then.After reading your question about your 2 yr old adopted dog, I felt that I could give you some hope. I know that you feel your 2 yr old adopted dog doesn’t love you at all …but you might be surprised. He may be developing feelings for you and your family but he’s afraid to express them. To feel them. He’s tentative right now but he may be attaching to you faster than you think. Maybe. Nobody can really know unless you test him somehow like I inadvertently did.Letting him off leash wasn’t meant to be a test. It was a desperation move to help move him out of his depression. If I were to do this again I would go to one of the Milwaukee County dog parks. That’s where I take my current dog. They are large enclosed areas. Dogs can’t run away. If you have one in your area. Take your dog there and let him run! But I digress.Leash removed, Buddy Boy looked up at me and for the first time…I saw a light in his eyes. His face was expressionless but HOT DAMN! There was definitely a light in his eyes! A little spark OMG! But what did it mean? Was he thinking, “I’m outta here!”? We actually looked at one another for a timeless moment. He couldn’t believe I’d done that. Took his leash off. I said, “That’s right…you’re truly FREE! Go for a run but please don’t run away! Stay with us! Stay with our pack!” He spun around and took off running.He took off like a shot running perpendicular to the trail. He was headed straight for the woods. “OMG…he’s going to run into the woods and disappear on me. He’s gone!”Then, just before the woods, he stopped running, looked back at me, by now probably a good 75 yrs away…and started walking along with me parallel to the trail. HE WAS FOLLOWING ME as I walked along the trail! I kept my eye on him, I couldn’t look away I tried to make it look like I wasn’t watching him but he knew I was. He made a point of turning and blatantly looking right at me as we walked along every now and then either to make sure that I was STILL THERE….or to let me know that HE was still there!And when it was time to go back he turned around when I did and followed along all the way back to the car and jumped right in. I was thrilled and for the first time, I felt that maybe he was bonding with us…with me! I was also convinced that this turn of events would turn his depression aroundTurns out he WAS bonding with us, and he slowly but noticeably started to normalize. I took him walking every day and every day I let him ‘off leash’. Sometimes he’d disappear around a hill and show up on the other side still following the trail. Another time he disappeared and did not reappear. I was a bit crestfallen and panicky but when I got back to the car…there he was! Waiting for me!Slowly, his mood improved, he came out of his shell and it got to the point where I felt he was truly happy, but there was ALWAYS SOMETHING about him, a profoundly deep part of him was sad and he’d never really be whole. I have a photo of him laying in the grass in our back yard. He’s turning his head and looking right at the camera. The look on his face is haunting. Deep. Mysterious. Profound. “This dog,” I thought, “Is an old soul.”An Old Soul…We gave him ALL our Love…Yet there were times you could just tell…he was missing something.Yet, when we’d come home from work, both Susan and I, he’d howl like a wolf! WOOOOWOOO WOOOWOOO! So he was beginning to be happy. Of course by now, ‘Buddy’ had become ‘Huckleberry’…as in Val Kilmer’s Tombstone character, “I’ll be your Huckleberry!” Well…Buddy had become our Huckleberry!Finally…that elusive SMILE appeared!He gained weight and it was all muscle! Fairly large, at 85 lbs, he was the most polite dog I ever knew. You could tell he took great CARE when inside the house not to bump into anything. The end tables the coffee table, whatever…he was careful not to touch or bump anything.Being part Husky a Northern Breed dog he LOVED LOVED LOVED winter which Wisconsin has a lot of. The Oakleaf trail is intersected a couple of times by the Root River. One day after a snowfall the Root River was flowing particularly fast with large chunks of ice in it. Huckleberry loved swimming and would pretty much jump into any river, pond, or lake given the opportunity. That day, we were about to cross a footbridge across the Root where the embankment was probably 30–40 ft almost straight down, Huck ran down the embankment to the River. I’m yelling, “NOOOOOOOoooooo!” and sure enough…he jumps into the freezing cold, fast moving water that was filled with chunks of ice. I thought he was doomed. He proved me wrong. He swam around in a big circle. Then, satisfied he’d had his daily swim, he just jumped up onto the bank as easy as you please and scooted straight up that steep embankment right back to me staring me in the face. “You CRAZY nut, Huckleberry!”You call THIS a Storm??? It’s just a nice winter day!And so for the next five years, Huckleberry was Free…free of the leash ..and incarceration and we had given him the freedom to run away if he so desired or to stay with us and be part of our pack. Thankfully, he chose us. We were honored. Truly honored by him.Just took a swim! Gotta run now!Again, there were times when he’d be sitting in our yard, sunning himself in the grass, with a faraway look on his face. He was an old soul and there was something he could never make whole again. We always wondered and speculated what it could have been. Was he missing someone? His original owner? Family? Children? We could only speculate.In the winter of 2009, March, our Huckleberry was diagnosed with canine Leukemia. In April, I took him to the Univ. of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine which is an Oncology Vet school or rather…that’s their specialty. They talked us into getting him into a program whereby they were seeking drug protocols for canine leukemia. They told us in no uncertain terms that they could NOT save him. They made that very clear. They did not want to give us false hope. The purpose of getting him into the chemotherapy protocol program would be for future dogs in the hope that someday Huckleberry will have contributed to finding the right protocol…the ‘cure’. Every Thursday I would take the entire day off work and drive an hour and a half to the UW Vet school for Huck’s treatments. He only lasted six weeks into their program. We took him home and it became a waiting game.By late May we had to put him down. He would only eat steak or salmon. Yeah…we spoiled him to get him to eat. His stool was like liquid black tar.On his last day, We took him for a long walk along the Oak Leaf trail that sorry morning. He took a swim in the small pond along the trail. . It was a mystical morning…foggy…misty, everything was wet, damp, and quiet. With the fog all sounds were muted. A silent, misty morning. It felt like we were the only three creatures on Earth. Then we went home.We let Huckleberry choose his spot in the backyard to lie down. The vet God Bless her heart came to our house. When she gave Huckleberry the injection I was holding his head, his face, with both hands. I swear he looked me straight in the eye to my very soul like a laser…then he was gone. I cried so hard the snot was running down my upper lip. Our vet (she’s still our vet) was a young, very pretty, woman and normally I would have been horrified to expose my vulnerability to someone like that but I truly did not care. You know, guys aren’t supposed to cry. But men DO cry, they just don’t want anyone to see them cry. I could not help but sob. I was in anguish. All over this dog…that nobody wanted. An unwanted dog that was returned 3X times back to the shelter. So depressed he hid behind the couch when we first got him home. I miss you, Huckleberry!Postscript: I placed a Celtic stone, a marker, where Huckleberry laid his head that strange foggy day in May. It’s still there. It was August before we got our next dog. Found her on the internet at a huge shelter in Nebraska known for rescuing puppy mill dogs. Nebraska! They didn’t make me drive all the way to Nebraska they met me in Des Moines Iowa on an early Saturday morning. We met in the parking lot of a MEGA Wallmart and when I pulled into the parking lot, I thought OMG! How will I ever find them? It seemed like acres of cars on a Saturday morning!They told me they’d come in a Van and the shelter name HUA (Hearts United for Animals) would be on the Van doors. There were hundreds of cars in this MEGA parking lot! I didn’t bother driving around and around, I just pulled into the first spot I saw pretty much right near the entrance. Within thirty seconds a white van pulled into a spot on the other side almost right in front of me. There was nothing on the door. No signage. But I knew. I knew it I knew it I knew it. I got out of my car and walked up to the van just as the driver was getting out. “John? Are you John from Hearts United?” He said, “Yes.”I was flabbergasted! “They told me that it would say HUA on the van doors!” “Oh..”he said, “I forgot to put those signs on! They’re magnets. You just slap them on. It’s my fault, I forgot to do it. I’m sorry..” I said, “No problem…somehow I KNEW it was you…not only that…but can you BELIEVE that out of this huge parking lot we actually almost parked right on top of each other?” Talk about fate. Destiny. Weird.And so life goes on. John had our next rescue. An 80 lb. female husky mix named Luna. We were told she was found living in the back roads of Missouri surviving by fending for herself. It was very clear that she was freekin terrified. Her body language showed it. I tried to imagine her just getting used to a shelter and her handlers and then, WHAM! She’s put in a van for a long ride and handed over to a complete stranger. The fear just dripped off her.She was gorgeous and looked like a wolf. She had luminous, light gold eyes like a wolf. She was stunning. I went through a toll booth in Illinois on my way back home and the toll booth guy just gushed over her. When I pulled in our driveway and Susan walked up to the window she started to cry. “She’s Beautiful!”I talked to Luna all the way home. Mainly so that she would get a ‘feel’ for me. That I was an ‘OK’ guy and I wasn’t there to hurt her. I wanted her to sense this with my mindless banter.She didn’t say anything. She just listened, sitting in the backseat of the car. I checked on her many times looking in the rearview mirror. She didn’t know I was looking at her.Then, I switched from mindless banter to more important things. I told her all about Huckleberry. I stole a line from ‘Dances With Wolves’. I told Luna that Huckleberry had to ‘leave’ us, it was his time to ‘go’…because he knew that she was coming. Then I looked in the rearview mirror. Luna’s eyes were locked onto mine…in—the—mirror! She was looking right at me with those luminous gold eyes…in the mirror! Staring at me very much like in the photo below. Believe me, when Luna bore into you with those luminous gold eyes, she got your attention! I thought, “Holy Shit!”LunaPOSTSCRIPT:When I got Luna home, she didn’t pee for four days. FOUR DAYS! But then she settled in rapidly and like Huckleberry…I took her to the Oak Leaf trail right away and didn’t waste time letting her off-leash. She not only never ran away…but she liked walking alongside me. Sometimes maybe a little ahead or maybe a little behind as she read the ‘pee-mail’ dogs leave along the trail, but she always stuck close to me.Luna was definitely the most athletic dog I ever had. The people at HUA, the shelter she came from told me she climbed a five-foot cyclone fence. NOT to run away but to find people! Her most AMAZING feat of athleticism once she settled in with us took place one summer day. We have a back screen door where the actual screen is located about four feet from the floor. Luna was sitting at the very bottom of the screen door looking up at the screen. Sitting like she’s sitting in the photo above. With no warning, no preamble, no running start…from her seated position, she sprung straight UP and THROUGH the screen! Now the physical athleticism to do that was astounding enough but what blew my mind was when I asked myself, “How in the world…did she know…that she could even DO THAT? Jump through a screen without getting hurt? That the screen would YIELD to her? How did she KNOW THAT? She was not only athletic. She was very clever.My current rescue from Northern Lights Sled Dogs in Indiana:My current boy, “Sky” a.k.a. “Pookie” a.k.a. “Pookie Skywalker” Has Type I Kidney disease from drinking out of puddles other animals had peed in leaving behind parasites, bacterial Lepto Spirochetes (Leptospirosis) when he was surviving in the wilds of Kentucky not to mention worms in his blood, worms in his intestines( had to worm him twice!), and a host of other parasitic creatures. The Lepto was particularly hard to eradicate and he will always have compromised kidney function for the rest of his life. A rescue shelter, Northern Lights Sled Dogs, from just outside of Indianapolis had just gotten him in and was in the process of making him physically whole again. In retrospect, we probably adopted him prematurely and they let him go prematurely because they were filled to capacity and struggling to take in as many dogs as possible.Pookie Drinks gallons of water all day long. He pees rivers, lakes and ponds (not IN rivers lakes and ponds…I mean he pees a RIVER of pee! Lakes of pee!) and he will be peeing day & night for the rest of his life. The Vet says let him drink & pee all he wants & he’ll live to be an old dog!I wanted to make sure Sky had the very best renal care so I took him to Jerry A. Thornhill DVM, DACVIM at the Veterinary Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove, Illinois west of Chicago. Dr. Thornhill is, perhaps, the most highly sought after renal specialist in the entire midwest. That’s ALL he does. Kidneys. A renal specialist for cats and dogs. Nothing else. I felt like I was in the presence of greatness just meeting him. He was the first Veterinarian to ever conduct Kidney Dialysis on a companian animal in the midwest. Jerry A. Thornhill, DVM, DACVIM The clinic, the Veterinary Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove, was amazing.But all Dr. Thornhill could do was confirm that Sky’s kidneys were compromised. I asked, “Well…what’s his prognosis? How will he do for the rest of his life?” Dr. Thornhill pulls no punches. “Only Sky can tell us that. Time will tell. Let him drink all the water he wants, never deprive him of water and he should live to be an old dog.”I spend about $150 a month on Desmopressin and Benazipril to help him function. Of all the dogs I ever had…he is the SWEETEST one of all. So gentle. He takes treats in slow motion from the neighborhood children. So pretty (the photo doesn’t do him justice) …so pretty people always ask, “What’s HER name?” I chuckle. “He’s a boy.”

Living in Kansas City, Missouri is great for many reasons, from its many recreational opportunities to good schools to excellent food. Kansas City has a lower cost of living than the national average and the median home price is $146,300. It’s fairly affordable to live in KC, home to 491,000.As an established local marketer, we have worked with many businesses, particularly movers, in the Kansas City area and have written extensively about this region. We know first-hand how wonderful it is to live in and visit.Kansas City, perched on Missouri's western edge, is right on the border with Kansas, well known for its barbecue, jazz heritage, fountains, vibrant downtown area, museums and art. Here are some things that Kansas City is known for.Family FriendlyKansas City is known as a family-friendly city that has a strong job market, excellent schools and tight-knit neighborhoods. Even better, it’s a city you can actually afford to live in. As one of the most affordable cities in the Midwest, it boasts a cost of living 2.5 percent below the national average, which means you’ll spend less on anything from gas and groceries to utilities and housing.Affordable HousingHousing is relatively affordable here, but home prices are expected to rise by about four percent in the next year. As of right now, the median home value in Kansas City is $146,300, much lower than the national average.Good JobsAccording to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment for the Kansas City metro area is at 1,002,300 as of May 2020. Got to move here for work? Check out the many thriving companies here, from top engineering firms and hospitals to healthcare providers and insurance brokers.Top Rated SchoolsThe Kansas City metro area is home to more than 160 primary and secondary schools, some of the best being those in Overland Park, rated A+. There are other high rated school districts such as Lee’s Summit, Park Hill, Olathe and DeSoto.Exceptional Children’s Health CareKansas City’s Children’s Mercy Hospital is one of the best, boasting about 700 pediatric specialists covering about 40 pediatric specialties.Green SpaceKansas City has 220 parks over 12,000 acres of green space, plus 100 miles of trails for running and biking, hundreds of tennis courts and athletic fields, 30 lakes, 60 picnic shelters, four museums and five golf courses.MuseumsIf you’re into the arts and humanities, you will appreciate the close proximity to Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kansas City Regional Arts Council, and the Kauffman Center of the Performing Arts.FountainsThere are 200 fountains here in total. In the 1800s, the city planners who developed the community took inspiration from the fountains in Europe when designing the parks, streets and squares with decorative water displays, according to CNN.BBQYou will never be at a loss for finding amazing barbecue here. Let the Kansas City Barbecue Society guide you, as it oversees more than 450 barbecue contests around the world.As you can see, there are many awesome things to love about living in Kansas City, Missouri!

Questions comparing the “quality of life” between nations, states, regions, communities, continents all have the same answer: The wealthy, powerful and privileged have a good quality of life and those who are poor, powerless and underprivileged have a poor quality of life.The standards of living/quality of life experienced by the poor, disadvantaged and powerless should only be compared to the quality of life/standards of living of the poor and disadvantaged people from nation to nation, state to state, region to region, etc. For example, what is the quality of life/standard of living of someone who is very poor, underprivileged and powerless living in the American State of Washington compared to the State of Missouri? How do the impoverished and underprivileged citizens of USA as a whole compare to someone who is a very poor and powerless in Haiti, Pakistan, India or China or France or Sweden?To be very poor in every State of the USA almost always means access to health care, at least for pregnant women and children and elderly and even illegal immigrants; a home, education, clean running water, electricity, no need to share a home with many relatives, decent nutrition and usually transportation, even ownership of a car, televisions, cell phones, and some extras. To be extremely poor in S. Sudan might mean life barely sustained in an overcrowded and under-funded refugee camp.There are all kinds of programs staffed with people doing everything they can to get homeless Americans into shelter; the issue of being homeless in the USA almost always means serious mental health/addiction issues. A “home” in a S. Sudanese refugee camps means rags and plastic draped over some sticks.To be a baby born into extreme developing-world poverty means that chances are that you won’t make it til your fifth birthday. In the USA, Australia, Japan, Western Europe and the UK even the most fragile, disabled premature infants of the very poor are born in hospitals and cared for in Neonatal Intensive Care Units where millions may be spent to help you survive infancy and millions more dedicated to helping even disabled children of the poor to achieve their full potential.How do humanity’s many nations, States, cities and communities compare in how the most vulnerable and the impoverished are cared for? There are some developing-world nations that do more to support the poorest and most-vulnerable than some of the wealthiest nations on Earth. GDP and average income statistics do not always define how nations support their most vulnerable and underprivileged citizens, but GDP is ALWAYS a primary factor in what resources are available, if not how those resources are distributed.The variations in the distribution of available resources/wealth to assist the poorest and most-vulnerable citizens depend upon both the dominant culture and the systems of government plus the degree of corruption in government. Some cultures do not assume responsibility for the most-impoverished and least-powerful and others do in varying degrees. Democracy and literacy and gender equality hugely enhance the quality of life for the poorest citizens and entire nations. Theocracies and totalitarian rule tend to concentrate power and wealth for the elite few while the majority of citizens are poor; the extremely poor are desperately impoverished and often live without even life-sustaining support. Mother/infant/under-five morbidity and mortality is often tragically high and there is little opportunity for the very poor to improve their “quality of life” for themselves or their children.“A society is judged by how the least of their citizens are treated” (paraphrased) is attributed to Gandhi, Nelson Mendela and others, but the origin of the quote is obscure. That quote, however, is the absolute truth of how we must compare and judge one nation or State or cultural tradition from another, NOT by any other preference or standard.Therefore, KSA, with an enormous GDP and an incredibly high average income utterly fails because of Saudi neglect and oppression of extremely poor citizens and the legions of foreign laborers who live miserable lives of grossly unacceptable poverty and subjugation. New Zealand has a small GDP and average income but has social programs that give excellent support to the poorest and most-vulnerable.All wealthy first-world nations can do better than we are, but to be impoverished and powerless in the ME, Africa and much of Asia and parts of South, Central America and Mexico is to have a very low or NO “quality of life” and even to be deprived of life itself, and little opportunity to better one’s life or hope for things ever changing.