AllMovie

Mary Tyler Moore is the host of this TV special, taped at Atlanta's Rialto Center for the Performing Arts before a live audience of dogs and people. Promoting the Pet Partners Project of the Delta Society, this mock awards show honors animals which have aided the disadvantaged, such as Frosty, a horse loved by kids with Downs Syndrome. The rabbit Dusty provides comfort for burn victims, and a boy born minus legs has turtle Mo for a companion. Natasha is a helpful hound for a wheelchair-bound girl, and the Vietnamese pig Harley D. Swine is the porker pal to several severe head-trauma patients attempting to regain speech-motor functions. Three cats -- Buster, Flashback, Flame -- are pets at a Miami nursing home. Stingray Splasha jumps out of the water to help a youth with cerebral palsy. This 40-minute family special aired June 28, 1998 on HBO.