Dear Leona Helmsley’s Dog,

First off, let me just send my condolences and tell you how sorry I am for your loss. This must be very tough on you. Maybe as tough as when your mother was sent off to the federal pen for tax evasion. Things got tough then, and we all read about how you had to go off your foie gras diet and switch to boiled lobster. No butter! Is there no humanity in this world? And now she’s gone forever, that wonderful hotel heiress who the cruel media dubbed the “Queen of Mean.”

I always liked the woman. Not that we were close or anything. In fact, we had never met. But I walked by the Helmsley Park Lane in Manhattan once, and the hotel actually sneered at me and tried to steal a quarter from my pocket. So I feel like I knew her well. Is it true she could suck a dollar from a billfold three blocks away?

But to the point of this letter: I read in the newspapers that you have suddenly come into great wealth thanks to your master’s unfortunate demise. If I’m not mistaken, you were left a total of $12 million. That’s good money for a Maltese. Shoot, that’s good money for a beagle or a shitzu. In fact, in dog dollars, I believe that’s $84 million. Not bad, and I’m sure you have big plans for that money. Jetting out west to party all night with Paris Hilton. You two will go and trash rooms at a Radisson or a Marriott. (Silly second-tier luxury hotels.) And no doubt you’ll keep up with your manicures (or in your case, are they pedicures?)

But a dog your size surely can’t use all that money. So I’m asking if you would be willing to give some of it to me. You wouldn’t believe our poor and miserable lifestyle. We’re so low, we have to stay at Holiday Inns and GASP! even the occasional Travelodge.

The money wouldn’t be for me, but instead my own dog, Chase. She’s nothing like your fine pedigree. My dog’s a simple mongrel — an American mutt with no appreciation for the fineries of high-class living. She eats garbage, that sad, uncultured wretch. She’s never known the thrill of liver snaps soaked in a bottle of 1988 Dom Perignon. Once she had a shrimp tail she found on the street, but it made her barf. Fine living doesn’t agree with everyone.

I bet you’ve never had a flea in your entire existence. If you did, your blood is so rich that the parasite would just pop right then and there. But not my dog. When it comes to fleas, she’s like a Motel 6. She’s not only loaded, but these are ruffian fleas. No taste or sophistication. They swig beer all night long and eat fried chicken from a bucket. A bucket!

Doesn’t the thought of my poor beast just break your heart? I’m not asking for much. Maybe just a cool $500,000. That’s nothing for a rich dog like you. And that money would be put to good use. I could buy my pooch a lot of Armani with that money. She’d eat porterhouses every night, and we’d hire a neighborhood dog to go on walks for her. (Can’t be out there mixing with the other low class K-9s. Might get kennel cough or her tail end sniffed by a half-breed.) We’d buy a pillow made from the finest silk and stuffed with cultivated cat hair. Around the edges we would put diamonds, and we’d hire someone to powder her nose whenever it gets shiny.

So what do you say? Can you help a poor mutt out? Just a little is all we ask. We know your mother wouldn’t do it, but you sound like someone with a big heart. Just consider our request as you snack on caviar biscuits and get your 10:30 massage at the club.