Hey everyone, welcome back to another video.
This week we're gonna share with you
our favorite bully stick hack.
It's no secret that a tired dog is a happy dog.
We are constantly looking for ways
to keep our dogs busy and happy and give them
lots of things to do throughout the day.
Kokoro is a really really big chewer.
She loves long lasting chews and treats.
Natural edible chews that we really like
to give like bully sticks can be really expensive
so finding ways to make them last longer
is not only great for your dog's happiness
but also good for your wallet.
All right, so let's talk about bully sticks.
If you have a dog, you probably have come across
bully sticks at a pet store before,
these are really great natural one ingredient chew.
We really like giving our dogs treats that
are not so highly processed,
so bully sticks are always high on our list.
We've actually made another video
about the best long lasting chews that we like
to use in the past, and you can watch that
to see what other types of chews we
like to give the dogs.
Out of all the things we've tried,
bully sticks have hands down been the one thing
that they'll never say no to.
If I lay out a bunch of treats for them
to choose from, they will always grab the bully sticks.
And I think it's probably because bully sticks
kind of smell really stinky,
the dogs really like that kind of odor.
We really love giving these to them as a
way to clean their teeth. They're not as
hard as some other chews like a million dog chews
that can cause a little bit more risk
for fracturing of the teeth.
The downside of bully sticks is that they
can be really expensive, from six to seven
to eight dollars per stick. Pretty much you're giving
your dog the equivalent of a meal that you could buy
for yourself, and we give these to our dogs
every other day on average so that really adds up.
This is really part of the reason why we've been looking
for a way to make our bully sticks last longer,
so let's get into the hack.
Basically, we were looking for a toy that could wrap
around the bully stick but still give the dog access
to what it looks and smells like,
and doesn't prevent them from working on it totally.
Dogs like to feel like they're actually doing work
when they're chewing on something, so it's
rewarding for them to actually be able
to wear down the chew. We've actually
tried this toy in the past that's made
specifically to hold bully sticks,
but the problem is that it doesn't really give
the dog a really good access to work on the bully stick,
and it can get really really stuck in there,
so much so that they can just give up
and sort of just leave it there and lose interest.
We actually found this toy, it's called the
Hol-ee Bone from JW Pets.
They make a lot of rubber based toys,
we found that the small size
of this is really perfect
for holding your average five to six inch bully stick.
All you have to do is take the bully stick,
thread it through the holes of the toy,
and basically the JW Pet toy becomes a full casing
and holder for the bully stick.
We really really love this method
because the dogs can still see and smell the bully stick.
The toy takes it from a level one difficulty
to maybe a level five difficulty.
So they have to think
a little bit harder and work a little bit harder
to actually get to the bully stick.
Sometimes they're able to pull it out,
it kind of just depends on how thick
the bully stick is and how you position it in there,
but we found that this method really extends the life
of our bully sticks and keeps the dogs busy
for up to an hour.
As you can see Kokoro and Chibi go absolutely crazy
for these bully sticks and these toys.
Chibi is a much stronger chewer and she's able
to get the bully sticks out much quicker than Kokoro is,
I would say that Kokoro is probably like
a four out of ten in terms of strength,
and Chibi's maybe like a six.
They are relatively small dogs, 20 pounds,
so if you have a larger dog it might be a little bit easier
for them to work through the toy.
Overall we found that the quality of the toys
is pretty good, we like to stock up on these toys
because after the dogs have a few sessions of chewing,
there is a possibility that the rubber gets ripped.
Once the toy becomes ripped and doesn't really hold
the bully stick anymore, it's not as useful.
So in general we like to have an ongoing
stockpile of both bully sticks and these toys
so we can continue to rotate through them
and our dogs are always occupied.
I've also seen bully stick value packs out there
that basically sell bags of assortments
of smaller chunks of bully sticks. Probably kind of
like the leftover pieces when they're making them.
We were able to recently find a bag
where the bully sticks are kind of curved almost,
and these actually work almost better than
the straight bully sticks because it makes it even harder
for the dog to get it out of the toy.
There are a variety of ways that you can use this hack,
you can also use it for other treats that
your dog likes that's long and skinny in shape,
so if they're not really into bully sticks
then you could switch it out for their favorite treat.
Another great thing about using this hack
is that it keeps the bully stick's stink
sort of off of your rugs. My dogs always love
chewing on some sort of rug or dog bed so they have
traction to hold on to the chew,
and oftentimes if they're on my white rug
with the bully stick as they're chewing on it
and a lot of the stink kind of gets released,
it can rub into the rug. So having something
to hold the bully stick, really helps with that.
Another thing you might want to keep in mind is safety.
I've heard that other dogs have had issues
with choking on the last bits of bully sticks,
thankfully this has never been a problem
for Kokoro and Chibi, knock on wood,
but just to be safe you can always
take the chew away when they've worked down
to the last inch or so to avoid the risk of them
swallowing it and choking on the last little bit
of the bully stick. Basically that's it,
it's very very simple. We just combined this
awesome toy that we found from JW Pets
with our dogs' favorite edible chew,
and it makes it last instead of 15 minutes,
closer to an hour.
Thanks so much for watching,
we hope that this is a helpful tip
for anyone who's looking to make your bully sticks
last a little bit longer
and keep your dogs a little bit busier.
We hope you guys enjoyed the video,
and see you guys next time!