Simple mesh changes dont show up in game?

[DalaD]

Hello there,
First off, I have never published anything, mod or otherwise. And my expertise on modding are next to non existent, so please bear with me.

For the last few hours I've been trying to edit a couple of meshes for reduced clipping. But no matter what I do, the changes don't show up in game.
Specifically I tried to edit Dogmeats's bandana mesh in Outfit Studio, and after saving the .nif in the appropriate folder structure (Meshes/Armor/DogGear) every bandana showed up fine, including the changes i made.

Next I tried to edit the dog armors the same exact way i did with the bandana mesh(light,medium,heavy), but these changes don't show up in game no matter what.
The textures for the armor are there, its not invisible or anything - it just looks vanilla, like I have not edited it at all. If I open up the armor .nif-file in Outfit Studio my changes evidently are saved. They are just not showing up.

Why does the bandana changes show up, but not the dog armor?

This was tested on both a modded game, and an unmodded one, just to be sure.

It just be that I missed a crucial step somewhere, if anyone has tips I would gladly appreciate it.

(Also, english is not my native language x))