chown -R wierd under RH9

["Billy Davis" <bdavis cds-corp com>]

We just installed a fresh RH9 Server.   After loading an existing  directory
from another server, I decided to change the owner.  I change to
/home/accounting/tools and entered 'chown -R service *'.  I then noticed
that not only did every file both in and below the tools directory have the
new owner (which is what I expected), but so did EVERY file and subdirectory
ABOVE the ' tools' directory.  This has caused a mess.   I thought that
'recursive' meant 'everything in the current directory and below'.  Has
something changed in RH9 with chown, or what????  Is there an easy fix??

Thanks,
bdavis