This year’s Halloween costume can be as fanciful as a bride, as sophisticated as a black sweater with a simple spider web design or as cute as a dinosaur. Or, you could just go with the practical, a safety-orange pumpkin poncho for nighttime trick-or-treating.

In any case, you decide. Your dog can’t tell you what he wants.

Halloween costumes for dogs, like those for children, run the gamut in price and personality, and pet owners love to indulge.

“As soon as it’s on the dog, it’s sold,” says Shirleen Dubuque, a pet outfitter in New Canaan, Conn.

She stocks more than a dozen costumes, with the “devil” cape and horns and the pumpkin collar and hat among the most popular.

She also has bat wings and angel wings, which “are great for the dog that doesn’t want anything on its head,” she says.

The sweaters cost around $60 and the wings go for $16.

She doesn’t sell costumes made for cats. “Cats don’t like to have anything around their bodies,” she says, but cat owners buy dog costumes in size small, or, especially, the devil horns.

Web sites for pet costumes have proliferated in recent years, and one, AnniesCostumes.com, has seen an increase in sales every year since launching in 1996, according to Shari Maxwell, Webmaster for the site. “1999 was our first big Halloween season online and business has just about doubled each year after that,” she says. Interestingly, Maxwell says that pet costumes sell all year long, not just in October. The site sells more than two dozen pet costumes, besides its regular people costumes, and features a pirate, cheerleader, princess, king, superhero, ballerina and doctor.

“Our most popular pet costumes are the Top Dog tuxedo, which is popular all year. At Halloween time, SuperDog, Piggly Wiggly, and Lil’ Bandito have been the top sellers for us this year,” she says. Their prices range from less than $10 to about $22 for dogs. Their cat costumes, including a jester and an angel, cost a bit less.

Does your dog really want to dress up as Elvis?

Dubuque says that most pets don’t mind costumes, and, in fact, dogs that spend most of their time indoors need extra protection when they go out at night.

When choosing a costume, be sure it doesn’t restrict the dog’s movement or cover his eyes, ears or hind quarters, says Debra Bennetts of Best Friends Pet Resorts in Norwalk. “He’ll want to relieve himself and you don’t want to keep undressing him.”

You need to have a good sense of whether your dog really wants to wear a costume, she says. “If you have a dog that gets upset if you put something on his back, you shouldn’t force the issue,” she says.