Best Bully Sticks: Basil's Two Thumbs (paws?) Up

When Best Bully Sticks, a local dog treat producer specializing in all natural dog treats contacted us about sending some bully sticks especially for Basil to review, we (and Basil) jumped at the chance. The amazing folks behind Best Bully Sticks are also offering up a chance for one lucky reader to win an entire 25 pack of odorless bully sticks, so check back here on the blog tomorrow for the giveaway.

To give you a little background, Best Bully Sticks is an all-natural dog treat company based out of Richmond, Virginia (yay for local!). While they have an extensive line of all sorts of dog products, they're known best for their specialty in all natural bully sticks made with 100% beef of free range, grass fed bulls (also inspected and approved by USDA/FDA and national food inspection authorities). Since we're picky about the quality of what we give basil to eat and chew on, we were impressed with the company's mission of producing a natural chew (with no added chemicals or preservatives) and were excited to see just how Basil might take to them.

Here's how the bully sticks looked straight from the packaging:

When we were about to give Basil his first bully stick, he sat so curiously and nicely, knowing this was something new and something he wanted:

We even tried out a little balancing act, which he passed with flying colors:

Then it was time to dig in:

When we first let him have the bully stick, he sat there like this, in a sort of disbelief that this huge chew treat was actually his:

He then began what we like to refer to as "the good treat anxiety." This kind of anxiety is the type where Basil will begin to frantically pace all over the house, whining and crying at the same time while holding the chew in his mouth. He'll run up and down the stairs and all over trying to find a corner or cranny where he can dig and burry his new treat. Only with his most prized treats will he try to hide them. We knew these ranked high among his "special treats" given the level of pacing and whining he initially did after realizing it was his.

Given Basil's tough chewing nature and abilities (as evidenced here and here) we thought if we got 20 minutes out of this bully stick we could call it a true success. Well let me tell you — 20 minutes went by and the bully stick had barely changed after heavy gnawing. He actively chewed and worked down the bully stick for a solid 2 1/2 hours before we took away the small nub remaining (we sometimes worry he might choke on the small pieces of chews since he likes to tilt his head back while chewing it with the back part of his teeth).

This was the first time we've found a chew treat that's lasted this long and one that he's actively worked on for over an hour (not to mention 2 1/2). We can only imagine it was good for his dental hygiene. He actually ingested the entire chew other than the little piece left we took away. This is where we were cautiously waiting to see if he might get sick in the middle of the night, even though Best Bully Sticks claims the chews are 100% digestible. To our pleasant surprise, we didn't have a single unpleasant surprise in the middle of the night or the next day at all.

Given the all natural quality of the bully sticks, the length of time it took Basil to chew through one and the ease of digestion, we simply can't say enough good things about these chews and can't wait to try more.

We'll let Basil show you how he felt about them. You could say there were hug-worthy:

This is the look of one satisfied puppy:

Find the full collection of dog treat offerings from Best Bully Sticks (they have much more than bully stick chews) in their online dog supply shop. Keep up with new products, natural recipes, news and promotions by following their blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.

What treats do your pets go crazy for?

This review post was sponsored by Best Bully Sticks — all opinions (both human and canine) were ours! Look out for the giveaway post for a 25 pack of Best Bully Sticks coming here on the blog tomorrow!