What to Put on a Lick Mat — and What to Leave Off

A lick mat is a textured silicone sheet you spread something soft onto. The dog works at it with their tongue for a while instead of doing whatever else they were planning. It buys you a quiet ten minutes during a bath, a nail trim, or a work call.

The mat is the easy part. Most of the questions are about what goes on it.

Things that work well

• Plain unsweetened yoghurt. Check the label for sweeteners, see the warning below.
• Your dog's own wet food. The simplest option and it counts toward their normal portion rather than adding to it.
• Plain pumpkin purée. The tinned kind with nothing added, not pie filling, which is spiced and sweetened.
• Mashed banana or a little unsweetened apple sauce.
• Peanut butter, but only after you have read the ingredients. See below.
• Soaked kibble mashed into a paste. Unglamorous, free, works fine.
• Bone broth made for pets, or a low-sodium one with no onion or garlic.

Things to leave off

This list matters more than the first one.

• Xylitol, also sold as birch sugar. It is seriously toxic to dogs in small amounts and it turns up in some peanut butters, some yoghurts, and a lot of anything labelled sugar-free. Read the jar every time, brands reformulate.
• Chocolate and anything containing cocoa.
• Grapes and raisins, including in trail mix or baked goods.
• Onion and garlic, including powdered forms in stocks, gravies and seasoned leftovers.
• Macadamia nuts.
• Very salty or very fatty foods. Cream cheese, bacon grease and the like are not acutely toxic, but a mat loaded with fat is a lot for a dog's system in one go.
• Alcohol and caffeine, which should go without saying but turns up in leftovers.

If your dog eats something on the second list, ring your vet or a pet poison line rather than waiting to see what happens.

Freeze it

The single best trick. Spread the mat, freeze it for an hour or two, and the same amount of food lasts three or four times longer. Frozen yoghurt or wet food turns a two-minute distraction into something that holds attention through a whole bath.

In summer a frozen mat is also just a pleasant thing for a dog on a hot afternoon.

Count it as food

This is where lick mats quietly go wrong. A generous smear of peanut butter is a meaningful number of calories, and if it happens daily on top of normal meals it adds up over months.

The fix is easy: take the mat filling out of their normal portion rather than adding it on top. Using their own wet food makes this automatic.

Cleaning

Rinse it straight away while the food is still soft, it takes seconds. Once something dries into the texture you are scrubbing. Most silicone mats are dishwasher safe on the top rack, which is the easiest way to deal with anything greasy.

Cats too

Lick mats are not a dog-only thing. Plenty of cats take to one with a smear of their usual wet food, and it is a useful distraction during brushing or for a cat that eats too fast.

A sensible way to start

Spread a thin layer of something your pet already eats. Let them work at it with you nearby the first few times so you can see how they handle it. Build up from there.

See the lick mat set →