The Maltese Millionaire Speaks!

By Trouble, as told to Joel Stein

First of all, no, I am not happy about it. Leona Helmsley was my best friend, and I miss her every day. Second, I earned that $12 million. We were partners. I was the only one who supported her during the hard times. I bit people she felt she could not bite herself. I appeared in those commercials alongside her--softening what, to be frank, could otherwise have been a very harsh public image. Actually, I earned more than the $12 mil, but my lawyers say I can't talk about that until our case is settled.

So everyone wants to know what I'm going to do with the cash now that I finally have control over it instead of Leona. I'm not going to be like her--I won't be getting my face stretched out like I'm in the movie Brazil, or scooping up gaudy chandeliers and collectible figurines at some decrepit store on the Upper East Side at 75% off because I actually believe it's "going out of business." But seriously, I loved the woman.

While $12 million may not sound like much to you and your hedge-fund bonus, remember that in dog dollars that's $84 million. People are calling me the Bill Gates of dogs, but that doesn't even begin to capture it. Yes, I'm the richest dog in the world, but the second richest dog in the world has zero dollars.

I'm going to be smart with my money, not going to let what happened to Lassie happen to me. Bitch was so leveraged in oil and real estate in the early '80s that she wound up in a tiny house in some backyard, drooling and eating her own poop. Sad.

Some people don't think I'll do much with the cash, because they're lumping me in with all those cats that inherited money. But you know cats. It's like, "I'll just go to an island for a little while and decompress," and seven years later they are sleeping all day and so fat they can't climb up onto a bed, much less start that foundation for catnip addicts like they promised. But I've got plans.

First thing is, you don't have to worry about whether Michael Vick will be playing this season. He'll be playing. For me. Without pads. In a small ring. In a league made of teams of pit bulls. You know who man's new best friend is, Michael? The back of my damn paw. Also, I'm going to sit at the table and eat food and, when Vick comes by, not offer him any. I'll put out a little bit of water in a tiny, unappetizing flat bowl, and when he goes to drink out of a much larger, more pleasant-looking vessel filled with perfectly clean water that happens to be in the bathroom, I'm going to act totally grossed out and shame him for no reason.

Second, I'm starting a very small production company so we can finally get some decent dog movies out there instead of this junk with Cuba Gooding Jr. If I see one more mutt that overcomes the odds to become a firehouse dog or a shepherding dog, I'm going to barf up my food and not eat it afterward. I've got some feelers out for some scripts with dog antiheroes, someone cool who loves his pups but has to kill people who harbor the pirated DVDs he sniffs out. Because it's what he's been trained to do. And because it's right.

I do have some questions for my money manager. How much would it cost to get a guy on a leash and walk him around until he pees? I just need a few months with him to find out some stuff. Like: What would he pee on? What would he chase as he ran around in circles? If he saw another guy on a leash, what metric would he use to decide whether to fight him or sniff his rear end? Can he really taste the difference between organic and nonorganic dog food? Do squirrels have a filet-mignon section? I need to endow some chair to study this stuff.

The trick to getting the most out of my cash is to make it work for me. Once I set up some kind of foundation--something simple, like Dogs Are People Too, Only Better--I figure lots of sucker humans like Leona who've been burned by human relationships will pour cash in. I take out some ads, like "This Dog Will Be Put to Sleep This Weekend Unless You Send Me $500," and in four months that $12 mil is $24 mil, and I've got my nose 12 deep in Pomeranian rump.

Of course, I'm not a young dog, and now that I'm a dog of means, I've got a responsibility to think about what will happen after I leave. So I'm working on my will, and no, none of it is going to my loser kids, wherever they may be and however many of them there may be. I'm looking for someone who has a certain kind of attitude, a style of life, to carry out my plans. I'm leaving it all to Naomi Campbell.