Fracture toughness characterizes the ability of a material to maintain a certain level of strength despite the presence of a macroscopic crack. Understanding this tolerance for defects in soft collagenous tissues (SCT) has high relevance for assessing the risks of fracture after cutting, perforation or suturing. Here we investigate the peculiar toughening mechanisms of SCT through dedicated experiments and multi-scale simulations, showing that classical concepts of fracture mechanics are inadequate to quantify and explain the high defect tolerance of these materials. Our results demonstrate that SCT strength is only modestly reduced by defects as large as several millimeters. This defect tolerance is achieved despite a very narrow process zone at the crack tip and even for a network of brittle fibrils. The fracture mechanics concept of tearing energy fails in predicting failure at such defects, and its magnitude is shown to depend on the chemical potential of the liquid environment.