We all heard, when notorious hotelier Leona Helmsley passed "over the Rainbow Bridge" that she'd left $12 million to her pooch, Trouble.

I'll confess to thinking, at the time that ... well, all very nice, but it doesn't take $12 million to look after one dog, and there are still millions more (dogs, not dollars) dying in shelters every year. Leona, I thought, certainly loved Trouble, but that's a bit different from truly caring about animals.

I guess I have to rethink my thoughts. It's all over the news today that Leona actually wanted to leave billions of dollars to homeless dogs! According to The New York Times:

Her instructions, specified in a two-page "mission statement," are that the entire trust, valued at $5 billion to $8 billion and amounting to virtually all her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, according to two people who have seen the document and who described it on condition of anonymity.

But before we (meaning every animal rescue organization in the world) start lining up at the door of the trustees, bear in mind that this may all be a bit more complicated. The Times notes that the relevant document is simply a "mission statement", and that trustees are permitted to "use their discretion in distributing the money." It's an "expression of her wishes" and not necessarily legally binding.

Still, other legal experts are noting that a donor's intent is important when trustees are called upon to make such decisions.

Even if a small percentage of the fund is eventually given away on behalf of dogs, there's apparently no direction in the document as to how exactly it should be spent and to which organizations it might be given.

Nobody's asked for our opinion here at Best Friends. At least, not yet. But I'd certainly hope that enough funds go specifically to humane organizations that are fully committed to the no-kill philosophy. Properly managed, even a small fraction of such a fund could bring an end to the killing of homeless pets in shelters.

Plus, an infusion of funds into all these humane groups, even though directed to the goal of no more homeless dogs, would free up a lot of existing funds to help the cats, birds, bunnies and other homeless pets, too.

Whatever happens, we should all note that Leona may have been pretty awful when it came to her treatment of humans, but there was quite a large little corner of her heart devoted to the animals.