Only $1 million of the estate, valued at about $5 billion, was donated to the care of dogs, which Mrs. Helmsley had designated as her primary beneficiary.

"This is a trifling and embarrassingly small amount," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. "Mrs. Helmsley's wishes are clearly being subverted."

After Mrs. Helmsley's death in 2007, it was revealed that she had drafted a mission statement four years earlier listing two specific priorities for the distribution of her estate. The first was helping the poor, which she struck from the document a year later. The second was to provide for the care of dogs, although she added "and such other charitable activities as the trustees shall determine."

In February, a Manhattan judge ruled that the trustees had sole discretion in disbursing her assets and that the entire estate did not have to go to the dogs.

Mrs. Helmsley, whose husband Harry was a real estate magnate, also left $12 million to her own Maltese, Trouble. The disclosure that Trouble was the largest named beneficiary in the will prompted death threats against the dog.

Read more on this story from The New York Times.

To read Wayne Pacelle's blog about this issue, click here.

Photo credit: The Humane Society of the United States