EverChew's chew guide

Confused by bully sticks, collagen chews, and rawhide?

Here’s how to tell the difference, what they are made from, and what matters for safety. (by Kirby K.)

You’re not alone if you ever stared at a dog chew and wondered whether it’s a bully stick, collagen chew, or rawhide. A lot of these products are marketed in ways that make them look almost identical, especially online. Sometimes, I’ve had to study the packaging language and zoom in on the stick itself just to figure out what the chew really is.

Photo Challenge

Can you tell a bully stick from a collagen chew?

These chews can look almost identical, which makes misleading product names even harder to catch. Study the photo and make your guess. Hint: there are four of each.

The answer is revealed below.

What the chews are and what they look like

Bully stick

A real bully stick is dried beef pizzle. (In other words, it only comes from boy cows.) It’s a single-ingredient chew that’s thoroughly washed and then baked dry. Higher-quality sticks, like EverChew’s, are washed much more carefully and have significantly lower odor.

Bully sticks range in color from light reddish-brown to dark brown. The cut end can sometimes look like cut foam with little holes, and the occasional large hole. These holes are natural and expected and come as the ends of the protein fiber bundles dry.

Collagen chew

Chews sold as collagen sticks are hide-based (like rawhide), but they are processed only using the collagen-rich layers. Sometimes they come specifically from cheek tissue, and sometimes from an inner layer of hide from other parts of the animal. The key factor is that the chew is extremely high in collagen, so it breaks down much more rapidly in digestive acid and enzymes. And shouldn't cause a digestive blockage.

Collagen chews can look a lot like bully sticks. In profile, the cut end often looks rounded like a bully stick, and even has one side being slightly concave. But if you look closely at the end, you can often see that it is actually a double-wrapped sheet rather than a solid piece.

EverChew now sells high-quality collagen chews to give pawrents another chew option for their dogs. For safety reasons, we only sell them in sizes designed to fit an EverChew chew holder.

Rawhide

Rawhide is the old-school dog chew, and it's also made from hide. The difference is that it includes hide layers that break down more slowly in digestive acid and enzymes. That’s why, if a dog eats too much too quickly, it can form a plugging wad in the stomach.

Most rawhide is bleached stark white. That said, there are a few excellent brands of natural rawhide. One example is naturesbestrawhide.com. I would trust my Rosie with them, but not Wally, because he chews too fast.

Some companies mislead on purpose

Some collagen chews are absolutely marketed to look like bully sticks. Same color. Same shape. Same style of product photo. Sometimes even a very similar product name. So you think you’re buying a bully stick, but you’re actually buying a collagen chew.

These are some examples of package names or product descriptions I’ve found that I think are misleading. All of these examples are really collagen chews:

Bull Stick
Bull Chew Stick
Collagen Bully Stick
Bully Collagen Stick
Beef Bull Stick
Bully Roll

And then there’s an unusual product mishmash I found: “Bully Stick Stuffed Collagen.” It's bully stick pieces wrapped in a collagen chew and looks almost exactly like a bully stick. But at least they’re not trying to confuse people on purpose with the name.

With many product photos, it is genuinely very difficult to tell the difference.

Photo example

Bully stick vs. collagen chew

Close-up of the cut end of a collagen chew showing wrapped layers — Look at the cut end: the double inward curls on this EverChew refill show this is a collagen chew.

At first glance, the chew above looks like a bully stick—similar color and shape. But if you look closely at the cut end, you can see the inward curl of the two edges. That’s the giveaway that this is a collagen chew.

That’s why, if the product description is unclear, you have to look further in the details and check the cut end. If you only look at the hero product image, it can be very easy to assume you’re buying a bully stick when you’re actually buying a collagen chew.

Photo Challenge Answer

Check the ends of the stick

The top view of a dog chew can fool you. The end view shows how each chew is constructed. And the curled edges of the collagen chew aren't always straight-forwards. While a bully stick only has a "line" around the circumference of the chew, on collagen chews you can trace as the "line" curls inward and (and around sometimes).

Cut end of a collagen chew showing wrapped layers

Left chews 1-4

1 & 4 are Collagen Chews
2 & 3 are Bully Sticks

Cut end of a bully stick showing its solid protein fiber bundles

Right chews 5-8

7 & 8 are Collagen Chews
5 & 6 are Bully Sticks

Safety comparison

Safety issues of each chew type

I know from personal experiences some of the hazards and risks of different dog chews, and because dogs are dogs, it’s impossible to give absolutes. But the risk comparisons below should give you a useful way to think about the safety tradeoffs between bully sticks, collagen chews, and rawhide.

Comparisons 1 and 2 are for a lone, bare stick without a holder, or with the stick locked into a SafetyChew, SafetyChew+, or a SuperChew holder. Comparison 3 is comparing a low quality brand chew versus a high quality source like EverChew.