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As a major dog treat provider, this is a regular question we get in the shop, and I also read about online quite a bit.
A dispassionate answer would be, how long is a piece of string.
A GROK answer would be how big is the dog, the breed, age and general energy level.
You see, I come from a pro-dog walker background. I know that even feeding dogs beef liver, tiny pieces of it, when there are five or more dogs waiting, can lead to some dogs almost choking as they try and scoff the treat to get another one, before their competition does.
So anything bigger or harder in treat form can cause dog owners concern.
The rush to eat is called dog survival. It’s called amazing taste. It’s called the best of times, for your dog.
So why is the bully stick known as the ultimate treat? And how do you get it safely into your dog?
Bully sticks (from beef in particular) are known as occupier treats, and promote dental health. But this is just a surface glance at their value.
We will address amount and portion size, now, then why nutritionally they are also vital to most dogs on the planet.
Bully sticks. How many, how much?
Let’s break this puzzle down into the basics.
- Dog size
- Dog age
- dog health
- overall diet
- Dog size & bully sticks
This one should be fairly obvious. But we are not just talking about the size of the dog, but the chewing power as well as their weight and body conditioning.
A big dog (when a healthy weight) and in their prime, typically has jaw strength relative to their head size (which is usually relative to their total weight).
Breed does come into this somewhat though, as dogs like greyhounds are light weight, but have long jaws and are typically closely based on their wolf ancestors. Ie their teeth’s main function is for tearing and ripping the prey apart quickly.
They don’t have a wide mouth with teeth for grinding. Most dogs don’t have teeth for grinding, because they are carnivore based.
But for dogs that have long muzzles and big front teeth, bully sticks are likely to take a while to get through. They will need to put the bully stick in the back or sides of their mouth and chomp over and over on it. But for most breeds (except for massive hunting breeds, guard dogs, and fighting breeds) will struggle to break off pieces of a proper thick bully stick. THAT is a big point of what bully sticks are beset used for. To last a long time, to occupy the dog.
The bully stick will only be broken, by most dogs, by salivating on it, softening the bully tissue and ripping little wet pieces off the end. But the joy of getting those little nutrient dense pieces will keep the dog interested for potentially hours.
- Dog age & bully sticks
The biggest bully sticks are meant for dogs in their prime. Any dog can have a go at them, but most puppies and older dogs get bored when they can’t get a purchase on the stick, when they get no rewards.
Of course, both young and older dogs often need more protein than dogs in their prime, to handle the growth stage, and to replace cells and repair damage to muscles. And that is exactly the kind of nutrition that beef bully sticks can provide.
So here is the secret about bully sticks for ANY age dog.
You typically want to feed a dog a bully stick dog treat, that is just a little harder for it to manage than just eating immediately – if you want to entertain them when you are away.
The most expensive bully sticks tend to be the hard, extra wide and extra-long ones.
But even with beef bully sticks, you can get half sticks, or medium width sticks, or just small width sticks. The smaller the width, the more common, and potentially the cheaper they should be anyway.
But here is news that some owners don’t know. Any male animal can essentially be used to create a bully stick, since it just a dried male animal penis.
The reason that you don’t often see many bully sticks except from the big animals is processing time (ie the butchery) required to cut and dry many of the smaller animal and smaller width sticks, to give the manufacturer a worthwhile return.
Time is indeed money in manual human trades.
BUT if your dog has an allergy to beef, there are still quite a few other bully sticks available that can provide a different protein, and be the right size for smaller dogs, or dogs without the huge chewing power. In particularly things like pork bully sticks, or kangaroo (an exceptionally low hypo allergenic meat).
If your dog is a medium chewer, but allergic to beef, but will find pork bully sticks too thin to be much of a challenge, quite a few driers are braiding several pork sticks together to give an overall thicker stick and longer chewing experience.
3 dog health & bully sticks
And no, its not as simple as the obvious answer.
Yes, a sick dog might have trouble eating just its commercial dog food, even kibble.
But that is where the small bully sticks come into it.
If your dog has a terminal disease, but will get some primal joy by eating a bully stick, or a small width pork bully stick, why wouldn’t you get it to them, even if you have to cut the stick down into smaller lengths?
BTW, we are talking about NATURAL treats here. A true bully stick is 100% single ingredients, no additives. Exactly what an ill dog deserves.
But more than that.
Most commercial dog food is very light on meat. And that is because meat is expensive. But even if it says there are LOTS of meat in it, and the ingredients order seems to suggest this, there is still NO requirement to put a percentage of meat on any commercial dog food.
At least you know with a single ingredient dog treat exactly what your dog is getting.
And why does this matter? Well because meat is bio-available to your dog. An ailing dog requires all of the protein (and essential amino acids) it can get to fight off a disease.
We are not talking about stopping medications. We are talking about giving them a protein boost that they can actually use, while giving them primal satisfaction, to raise their happiness, that in itself can also help fight some diseases (ie not terminal cancer).
4. Overall dog diet
Most people know that their dog is getting much less than 50% meat in their diet.
This has nothing to do with providing a ‘balanced’ diet. It has about maximising profits for dog food manufacturers and retailers.
With only having to achieve 18% protein levels, and NOT tell you what amount of meat is actually in dog food, most people just trust the authorities to do the right thing.
Unfortunately, dog food is so far removed from a dog’s ancestors food type, that it is unrecognisable.
The amount of vegetable matter in commercial dog food is so high, that any dog on it, could eat half of its diet as bully sticks and still not get anywhere near the protein amounts that their ancestors had. Let alone species-specific animal protein that they can use.
CONCLUSION
There are so many reasons for choosing a bully stick for your dog. From occupier treat, to reducing separation anxieties, let alone the actual nutrition they are getting from it, and their cleaner teeth.
THIS is probably why you will find that the humble bully sticks have become so held high in esteem in recent years.
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