the dog park.

At last, PetSmart is making it possible for your cat to go trick-or-treating, and a new brand will have your pooch turning heads - and snouts - at the dog park.

As more of you primp your pets, retailers are seizing the opportunity. There are tankinis, holiday costumes, crystal-encrusted leashes, and "spa" products under a brand name you'd best not type into your Internet browser at work.

Manhattan-based Sexy Beast - billed as a "luxury canine care brand" - features cleansers, powder and gloss to freshen, deodorize and hydrate your pet's skin and coat with natural ingredients like chamomile and rosemary. Prices range from $26 for a 5.1-ounce "botanical water infusion" to $50 for 1.7 ounces of the signature fragrance. "Follow our 3-step system and witness passing dogs go weak in the knees," promises the promo on the Web site (www.sexybeaststyle.com). Sexy Beast founder Reneé Ryan says the name is intended to be fun and ironic, though she constantly has to warn people not to omit the word "style" when typing the Web address "or they're going to get porn."

Pet boutiques are springing up throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, with one of the latest being Bark & Meow of Tarrytown. It's the first in Westchester to feature Sexy Beast products in its collection of animal apparel, toys, organic foods and grooming products. Clothing ranges from $18 to $20 for polos and T-shirts, which have openings for the legs; $20 for a raincoat; $20 to $35 for harness dresses and vests; and $50 for coats of fleece or flannel. Grooming products start at $12 for 16 ounces of Cain and Able conditioning shampoo, labeled as all-natural with no harsh detergents and designed to ward of bugs and fleas.

Bathing suits for dogs are being sold for the first time by PetSmart.com. A tankini sells for $12.99 at PetSmart. Another first: PetSmart will offer costumes for cats this fall. And for those who want to make a more subtle statement with their pets, T-shirts are all the rage. "The dog apparel has been growing tremendously for several years," says PetSmart spokeswoman Michelle Friedman. "Each year the collection and the offering expands."

Paula Cronin of Ossining, treasurer of the Friends of the Cedar Lane Dog Park in Ossining, estimates that 40 percent of the canines who visit the park are sporting some form of apparel, whether it's a bandanna around their neck or a T-shirt. She knits and sells sweaters for dogs, with prices ranging from $30 to more than $100 for some of her cashmere creations.

"I see the market growing," she says. "People who don't have children - these are their children."
Spending spree

Americans are spending $9.6 billion a year on pet supplies, twice as much as in 2000, according to a 2007 report by Dillon Media LLC, a Berkeley, Calif-based market research firm for the pet industry. Figures are based on data from the U.S. Labor Department, and the category includes toys and housing as well as clothing and home-grooming products. The author of the report, company founder Michael Dillon, attributes the spending surge to growing pet ownership by people with disposable income and the strong trend toward humanizing pets and considering them members of the family.

People now consider grooming more of a necessity rather than a luxury, and are leaning toward holistic health, spurring the creation of new home-grooming products that promise health benefits, Dillon says. In apparel, high-end boutiques and fashion houses are putting out private labels. He points out that Neiman Marcus's 2006 Christmas Book featured a much larger selection of luxury pet accessories than in the previous year, including a $185 crystal-coated pet leash as part of its collection of crystal pens, computer mouses and opera glasses. As for the trend of matching pet and human accessories, consumers are taking it to new heights. For weddings, Dillon says, people are buying formal accessories for their pets.

To forecast pet trends, Dillon looks to see what humans are doing: "After a human trend hits the market, within six months there's a pet corollary out there."
What motivates you?

"We have always projected onto our pets human qualities - qualities that we understand," says Robert Thompson, professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University. In that way, people are inclined to use their pets to project their own identity.

"People's pets are kind of like their clothes and their haircuts and their car," he says. "It's almost like a pet is a living bumper sticker."

So what does it say about you if you put your pooch in a tankini? It mean's you're "a wise guy," someone who thinks it's funny to be tacky, Thompson speculates: "the same kind of person that would put a pink flamingo in their yard in 2007."

On the banks of Upper Nyack, the chihuahua du jour is ChiChi, one of three dogs that dwell in the Neabore household. Stephanie Neabore, a high-school learning consultant and mother of five, dresses her pooches up for special occasions.

ChiChi, Isabelle and Calvin, the latter two are Yorkshire terriers, have three or four sweaters each, including Liz Claibornes, which were $25 to $30 at Macy's. They have a collection of T-shirts, including some matching outfits, "because T-shirts are the big thing now," Neabore explains. And they have matching leashes and collars with big charms, which she bought from Victoria's Secret for about $25. They remind her of her own collection of 10 Kathy Van Zeeland charmed pocketbooks.

"I'm fashionable and I want my dogs to be fashionable," she says. "If they're going out and meeting people, I make sure they have a little bandana around (their neck), or a different kind of collar or a T-shirt.

"I think that the Yorkies are very fashionable dogs right now," she adds. "So are the chihuahuas, because my daughter and I watched 'Legally Blonde.' I sound very shallow but I have two masters's degrees."
When beauty is skin-deep

Not all of you are into dressing up your pets, to the relief of those pets who prefer to go "au natural."

Cindy Marino's Portuguese water dog, Storm, is not into wearing clothes, save for her "huge collection" of collars. Currently, Storm's in the market for a Yankees collar in a color that will show up against her mane of dark black hair.

But Marino, an Ossining resident who calls herself "a stay-at-home dog mother," finds other ways to indulge her 1-year-old pup. After baths, she dabs her with L'Occitane Lemon Verbena Eau De Toilette, an upscale fragrance for people.

Marino describes the aroma as "refreshing," acknowledging that she, not her pooch, is the one feeling refreshed.

Not that Storm doesn't smell fresh as a flower normally. "Portuguese water dogs are very, very clean animals ... they don't smell like other dogs," Marino explains. "But when she comes home from the dog park, after rolling around with other dogs, she does take on a doggie odor."

At a recent pet parade in Tarrytown, Bark & Meow owner Laura Haupt and her shiba inu, Sachi, sported matching Sexy Beast T-shirts as she handed out samples of the signature fragrance.

"It smells great," said Diana Edelstein, a mother of six from Tarrytown, taking a whiff of the scent described as "a unisex blend of bergamot and vanilla-infused musk combined with natural patchouli, mandarin and nutmeg oils." Still, she can't imagine using it on her German Shepherd, Bax. It's not his style, she said. "He's a tough guy."

She handed it to Anita Goldman, her cousin from New Jersey, who promised to pass it on to her "granddoggie." The Sexy aroma would be perfect for her son's chihuahua, she said.