TUSCOLA - Chris Bodine, a blue-eyed, blond-haired 8-year-old with a wide, gap-toothed grin, scurries about the stable, sliding bowls of food into the stalls for some of his favorite horses.

Chris, who came to the horse rescue facility wearing his sky-blue galoshes, heads out into the adjacent muddy pasture to scatter sections of hay for horses to eat off the ground. His mother, Kelly Bodine, tries to accompany him, but discovers that the mud is not as easy to walk across for an adult as it is for a 50-pound child.

She urges Chris to venture farther out by himself, saying, "Just think of all that mud you like playing in. Take it as far as you can."

He trudges on to the pasture's perimeter, about 50 yards away. When he reenters the stable, apparently worn out, Chris lies down on a concrete slab as two white horses are let out of their stalls.

"Chris, pay attention," his mother warns, as the large animals amble by, passing a few feet from his head on their way out to pasture.

It is apparent that Chris trusts these horses. To him, lying down near them is about as threatening as lying down near the large cats that wander in and out of the stable.

And while it might momentarily startle the mother of a small boy to see him hanging out near the hooves of half-ton animals, Bodine is thrilled Chris has learned to trust.

That is one of the main reasons she has been bringing him to Crosswinds Equine Rescue for the past eight months.

Crosswinds, founded in 1999 by AnnMarie and Mike Cross, finds homes for horses that have been rescued from slaughter or abusive situations or donated by their owners. Mike Cross said the couple, now caring for 12 horses at the facility on almost five acres, recently decided they wanted to extend their services to help special-needs children.

"We are starting to do things like work with Chris," Mike Cross said. "He gets a chance to build confidence, trust, responsibility."

John Rosemond, psychologist and author of books and columns on successful parenting, said he thinks it's great for children to have relationships with animals.

"Horses, generally speaking, relate extremely well to children. For children who are disadvantaged, autistic, deprived, for this kind of thing to be extended to them, I think it's a wonderful thing. Children like horses, and horses like children."

Chris, who has difficulty getting along with teachers and students at school, is being homeschooled. His mother believes his emotional problems stem from his birth mother's drug abuse and other negative prenatal factors.

Bodine and her husband, Dr. Ken Bodine, adopted Chris at birth.

"He has a pretty short attention span," Bodine said. "Even in first grade, they had trouble controlling him. He doesn't trust controlling adults."

Since Chris, who is very energetic and highly intelligent, has been performing weekly chores at Crosswinds for the past eight months, his behavior has noticeably improved. Bodine said her son previously had trouble accepting the authority of teachers and other adults.

"If you can trust a large, powerful animal, that helps you to trust other adults," Bodine said. "It has brought us together, so he doesn't fight me on the trust issues. He understands how to care for somebody.

"He and Mike have a really great relationship. He has a love for animals. You gain the trust of the horse, and the horse trusts you. Horses helped him to understand structure and accept authority. He brushes, and he grooms. He used to not do his chores, like picking up his room. Now he understands this is part of his life."

Chris, who has a creative streak a mile wide, seems to understand that horses prefer something new over the same old thing.

When he feeds hay to horses on the other side of the stable, he places it up in branches of apple trees, rather than on the ground.

"It's sort of like a challenge," Chris said. "It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt for them. They have to find it."

Chris, who has a cheerful personality and a quick, precocious wit, also enjoys challenges. At Crosswinds, he picks up a rope and practices twirling and throwing it until he makes some progress, while Mike Cross offers instructions.

But Chris did not fit in well within the school environment, and he does not miss it. This is Chris' take on what schools are all about: "All kids have amazing brains. They have all these great incredible ideas. Then you send us to school. The teachers just suck out all those great ideas and fill them with all the things they want you to know."

Bodine and Cross agree that coming out to the ranch and working with horses has helped Chris to see that it is not a bad idea to obey adults in charge.

When Chris throws a board down out of a tree house, Cross tells him he has to retrieve it from the muddy pasture before a nail in it injures a horse. It takes Chris a few minutes to decide to follow instructions, but he takes the necessary steps to remove the potential hazard.

"A couple of months ago, he might not have done that," Cross said.

Huey Freeman can be reached at hfreeman@herald-review.com or 421-6985.