Jenice Armstrong: Handling the 'dogs'

HOW BIG A DOG do you think your man is?

And if you could, would you be willing to leash him? Or maybe install one of those invisible fences that will deliver an electric shock when he goes after the neighbor.

But, honestly, wouldn't it be easier to get the poor thing fixed? Or else leave him at the pound, or in the doghouse for good?

It's not as if you can teach an old dog new tricks, as Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock recently discovered.

This is a long way of introducing you to the woman who thinks of herself as Philly's Head Dogcatcher in Charge (HDIC). But April Walker isn't your usual animal worker, meaning that she doesn't work for the city or deal with four-legged critters. This Glenside resident's mission is to help women involved with cheating men, or "dogs," as she calls them.

Her Web site, where she sells pens with tiny voice recorders and teddy bears stuffed with hidden cameras, is SkinADog.com. The name was taken from her self-help book which has the grisly title, "More than One Way to Skin a Dog" ($18.95). Yesterday, I asked the 40-year-old behavior specialist if she gets much negative pushback from men offended by being referred to as canines.

"Yes, I do, but I say, 'If it doesn't apply, let it fly.' I'm not talking about the do-right men, as I call them," said Walker, who has a master's degree in psychology and works as a therapist in Jenkintown. "I'm not a male basher. I love men. I'm only talking about the dogs."

As you see, Walker, who's engaged to be married in June, has no tolerance for cheating men, and has devoted herself to helping women improve their situations - hence the private counseling sessions she provides for $29.99 per 15-minute-block.

In her book, she classifies men as belonging to certain canine breeds.

The worst are rottweilers, which is the category in which she places golf great Tiger Woods. Woods, whose clean-cut image was scarred after numerous women claimed to have bedded him, presents "himself like the perfect family man . . . but he's very dangerous. Women that are married or in a relationship with a rottweiler never see it coming."

Much better to be with a loyal St. Bernard or perhaps a collie.

I asked Walker why infidelity seems like such an epidemic lately. Just as the world seemingly moved on from trying to figure out what would make former presidential candidate John Edwards risk his marriage and political career by becoming involved with a campaign staffer, Bullock's five-year marriage became fodder for gossip after it was revealed that her reality-TV star husband had cheated on her with a tattoo model.

"Cheating has always gone on," Walker said. Today, though, "we talk about it more. I also think it has been glamorized more."

One place it's not glamorized is on Walker's Web site. In a section called "Dog Sheets" there are posts purportedly from scorned women who name names and warn others, for example, that "he has 7 children by 5 different women. . . . I only knew about the 3 by his Ex-Wife; the other 4 popped up later; 1 he conceived during our marriage."

When I clicked on the "Dog Bark" section - where cheaters discuss their dirty deeds - I was startled to hear a recording of a dog barking. Who let the dogs out, indeed?

The dogcatcher means well, but if the antics of Woods, Edwards and Bullocks' Jesse James remind us of anything it is that if a cheater wants to stray, he will find a way.

Instead of investing in one of those spycam teddy bears, it's a whole lot healthier just to move on or maybe buy yourself a real dog to keep you company.

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.