You can choose your friends but you can not choose your family. Except of course for the family dog. It has become increasingly popular nowadays for dogs to inherit some money after their owners pass away. And why not? They are after all part of your family and you leave your family members something after you are gone, dont you?

What if you are a billionaire and want to leave your entire fortune to your dog after you die? Well unfortunately, you can't. It is not legal to leave money to a pet legally because pets are considered property. And property can't own property. So in order to get around this, you can open a trust fund for your dog and appoint a human trustee whose sole responsibility would be to follow your written instructions in regards to how this money should be utilised. Here some extraordinary dogs who inherited more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime!

1. Countess Karlotta Libenstein of Germany left approximately $106 million to her Alsatian, Gunther III in 1992. Her trustees invested the money and tripled the fortune. When Gunther IV was born, he officially became the wealthiest dog alive.

2. Toby Rimes inherited around $80 million from New York owner Ella Wendel.

3. Frankie was endowed with $5.3 million dollars. He currently lives in a mansion in San Diego.

4. The celebrity dog, Eddie who starred on the TV show Frasier is now worth approximately $3.2 million. Moose earned around $10,000 per episode.

5. An heiress Diana Myburgh rescued her dog from a shelter and endowed him around $700,000.

6. Drew Barrymore rewarded her life saving dog with anew dog house and placed her entire home in trust with her trusted yellow Lab mixed breed.

7. Eighty-nine year old Norah Harwell left almost her entire estate valued at 800,000 pounds to her two Collie dogs. She also left a portion of it to the Animal Health Trust Fund in England.

So there you have it! The world's wealthiest dogs. I guess we all would want our best friends, our companions and confidants to be well taken care of in case we pass away. I sure would not want our little Peanut to be homeless or take to a shelter.

Dogs and other pets are such integral parts of our lives that it would be difficult not to view them as parts of our family and sometimes even as our children.

Article by: Ken Krysinski