Halloween Dog Costumes: Where You Can Get Them Cheap

October is my favorite month, besides it’s my birthday month, it is almost the month for Halloween parties and Trick-or-treating.

I’m not a big fan of dressing up dogs but for Halloween and other important festivals, I make it an exception.

I know some of you may think I’m way too early to be promoting Halloween costumes; you might want to rethink for all I know Halloween starts early this year. And if you have small dogs under 6lbs, you’d better start your Halloween costume shopping now. Don’t be a fool like me; last year I waited until the week before Halloween to get costume for my dogs and they all ended up wearing the same kind of costume—the puppy wings, (friends and relatives already had a hard time differentiating my seven Maltese and to see all of them wearing the same costume made it even harder for them to give extra treats to their favorites) because this was the only small-sized costume left unsold. I can’t never understand why pet costume manufacturers don’t make enough variety of costume for small dogs (neck size 9″ or smaller).

Costume Discounters and Halloween Mart

There are two online pet costume stores which I patronize; they are Costume Discounters and HalloweenMart. Almost all the prices for pet costumes (except for two) at CostumeDiscounters are slightly lower as compare to HalloweenMart.

When comes to maneuvering around the sites, HalloweenMart categorizes the costumes better—general dogs, holiday dogs, spooky dogs, storybook dogs, superhero dogs. If you haven’t decided on the theme or type of costume you are going to get for your dog, then CostumeDiscounters would be a easier as you get to view all their pet costumes on one web page (FYI, when comes to viewing individual costume, avoid using Safari browser as the size selection texts go out of the page alignment, best view them in Firefox and Window browsers).

In terms of varieties, HalloweenMart has 57 pet costumes while CostumeDiscounters has 54 as of this writing. There are only 8 pet costumes that are repeated on both stores—Daisy Bee, School Puppy, Zelda Prisoner, Rockstar, Zelda Queen, Pom Pom Pup, Rider Jockey Harness, Witch Hat with Hair. Therefore there are
103 varieties of pet costume for you to choose from.

Of the 103 varieties, you will notice both stores carry quite a few similar pet costumes and yet not identical. One example is the Doggie Devil from CostumeDiscounters (top 3 popular pet costume) and Red Devil from HalloweenMart (which I got for my Silky, Kiki). Basically, they are from different designers.

If you intend to get Daisy Bee (one of most popular pet costumes) and Rockstar, you might want to get it from HalloweenMart. Daisy Bee is priced at $14.99 at HalloweenMart whereas CostumeDiscounters is selling at $15.99. For the Rockstar costume, there’s a $3 difference. You could, however, get Daisy Bee for $11.99 from CostumeDiscounters if you would to purchase from them. It’s stated on their website…(The lowest costume prices…guaranteed! If you find the identical costume elsewhere on the internet, we will match the costume price plus take off an additional 20%, details here.).

As I was saying about the costume variety for smaller dogs, they are quite limited; so it would be wise to start shopping now in order to avoid disappointment. I’m only going to list those costumes for small dogs with neck size between 5″ to 10″ that are available as of this writing. Happy Shopping!

My Picks for 2009 Halloween Dog Costumes are:

• Lil Ballerina, $17.97
• Giraffe, $17.97
• Rider Jockey, $18.97 (currently out of stock at both stores)
• Rider Mailman, $18.97
• Hound of Hell, $11.97
• Dogula, $16.99
• Ghost Boppers, $7.97 (currently out of stock)

Update: Just found another cheap (especially for those x-small sizes, good news to small dogs) Halloween dog costume online store—OhMyDogSupplies. FYI, there’s additional 10% off or $10 off discount, please check out my coupon page for details.

Though they have only 32ish dog costumes, but there are a few unique ones and other old-time favorites (e.g. Dinosaur and Hot Doggy). Prices ranging from $14.95 to $25ish. Most of the costumes are pretty “wrapped up,” I think they are more suitable for dogs living in cooler climates during this Halloween season.

Since piglet as pet is so in now, but you don’t intend to adopt one, I highly recommend the pig costume as a way to disguise it. This costume costs only $16.46 for all sizes.

My other favorite costumes for this store are:

• the Skunk, $16.45
• the Spider, $16.45
• the Pumpkin, $17.95
• the Chimp, $17.95
• the Shark Attack, $14.95 out of stock

For those of you who have trouble getting your dog to wear the costume for more than 2 minutes but don’t want to miss out the fun, here’s an alternative. Get the Halloween Doggies 4 Pack ($29.65), and have it attached to the leash or collar. So if any of your neighbor refuses to give treats to your dog because he’s not wearing a costume, show them anyone of these Halloween Doggies and say that this is passive participation under special circumstance!