HAPPIER TRAILS; ABUSED HORSES FIND HELP.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

The horses at Oakview's Canada Corrals seemed starved for human affection.

Rocky and Sly and Lit'l Bit and Mello and Molly all vie for visitors attention, sniffing and nuzzling a newcomer or wrapping their elegant necks around their owner Mike Dodge in what Dodge playfully calls a ``horsie hug.''

It's extraordinary that these horses should be so eager for human contact, given that humans have starved, beaten, whipped, tripped, and in some cases, come just to the brink of slaughtering them before Dodge and his wife, Christine, intervened.

``They're probably the most forgiving of God's creatures,'' Dodge said, tickling old Buttercup's belly until the elderly equine stretched out her neck in unrestrained bliss. ``Even if they've been abused, they'll still come back.''

The Dodges founded their nonprofit organization HORSE, or Help Our Rescue Save Equines, four years ago.

After moving into a house zoned for horses in the Ventura hills, they adopted two horses who had been mistreated in a rodeo. Rocky and Lit'l Bit, their first two rescues, are still part of their stable today.

Those adoptions led to another - a starved and abandoned mare named Gabby.

``After we had rescued Gabby, word got around that we would take in unwanted horses and we began to get calls from stable managers who wanted us to take in abandoned horses,'' a biography of the organization states. ``Of course we did . . . and did . . . and did.''

Since then the Dodges have dedicated themselves to finding a good home for each imperiled equine they come in contact with, or at least providing a safe resting spot for the animal's waning years.

``We take in the horses, retrain them, and then adopt them out to good homes where feasible,'' Dodge said. ``A lot of them are very traumatized or so old that they can't be adopted out, so we put them in our sanctuary for the rest of their lives. We have 24 horses now. And we have two more coming in this weekend and one other mare possibly.''

Over the past four years the couple has taken in about 60 horses, and adopted out half of them.

``They really know how to match their horses to (adopting families,)'' said Jacqueline Rojo, 32, of Carpinteria, who recently adopted a quarterhorse named Bailey for her three sons. ``We needed something really safe, really well-trained . . . We love Bailey. This place is wonderful.''

The animals have become the Dodge's life work, their mission, their reason for being. Chris, a day-care manager for a program for the mentally ill, spends much of her off-time tending the horses, Dodge said. He gave up his job as an auto sales manager to care for the horses full time.

And the horses seem to sense that devotion.

``These guys seem to appreciate the care people give them after they've been abused,'' Dodge said.

Their work with abused horses has recently extended to work with abused children as well, Dodge said.

Recently the organization conducted a program at Los Angeles' juvenile hall, where 76 inmates ages 8 to 14 were introduced to a dozen horses.

``Some of these kids were murderers,'' Dodge said. ``One had shot a cop. They were carjackers. But for one day they got to be kids.''

The children learned how to clean a horse, how to saddle a horse, how to rope a horse, said Michael McMeel, chairman of the board of the Awareness Foundation in Woodland Hills, which sponsored the event. The kids even shoveled horse manure. But most of all, they learned to ride.

``These kids got up on horseback, some had never ridden in their lives, some had never seen a horse, and within an hour they were up on horseback galloping around the grounds,'' McMeel said. ``There's a magic that happens between a horse and a kid.''

HORSE and its horses will return in November to do a riding workshop for girl inmates. Dodge said he hopes to work with local at-risk or troubled kids as well.

In the meantime though, the group is dealing with the built-in dilemmas of its mission. Facing eviction because they have 19 horses in a corral zoned for 16, they are seeking larger quarters, Dodge said.

Unwilling to sacrifice a single animal, they constantly struggle to support the ones they have.

``It's hard to keep up with the number of horses coming in,'' Dodge said. ``They come in faster than they go out.''

Still, he said, ``We've never turned a horse down. We're afraid if we turn it down it will end up for slaughter.''

Last year the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 113,645 horses were slaughtered in the United States, mostly for consumption in France, Belgium and Japan, said Marc Paulhus, director of horse protection for the U.S. Humane Society. That's down from a 1989 peak of 342,877, he added.

Although there are no plants in California that slaughter horses for human consumption, a ballot measure targeted for California's 1998 general election would make it a felony to slaughter - or export for slaughter - any California horse for human food.

Dodge said if that measure passes, more horses that would have been shipped to slaughterhouses in other states would be simply abandoned, much like unwanted dogs or cats.

Dodge says they'll do whatever they can to welcome those castaways.

``We never turn a horse down, because if we do it will be killed,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--ran in SIMI edition only--color) Ransom, a horse who had been starved, looks out from Oak View's Canada Corrals, which rescues slaughter-bound horses.

(2--color in CONEJO edition only) Mike Dodge of Oak View's Canada Corrals gives a hug to Molly, who has been given a new start with mentally handicapped children.

(3--color in CONEJO edition only) Jacqueline Rojo, 32, of Carpinteria recently adopted a quarterhorse named Bailey for her three young sons.

David Sprague/Daily News