Breakfast at my house lasts about forty seconds. Pepper, my six year old cattle dog mix, hears the kibble hit the bowl and it is gone before I have set the bowl down properly. Forty two pounds of dog, and by ten past seven she is standing in the kitchen doorway giving me a look that says: now what.
I have looked after other people's dogs in my home in Tehachapi, California for nine years. Usually two or three guests at a time, and the fast eaters are the ones who get bored first. Eighteen months ago I bought the AWOOF Pet Snuffle Mat, mostly because I was tired of a dog with nothing to do before eight in the morning. It is a cloth mat, about eighteen inches across, and instead of dropping kibble in a bowl you scatter it into the fabric. Here is what changed, in the order it changed.
Your dog is not bored. Breakfast just takes forty seconds.
The AWOOF snuffle mat spreads a meal across the fabric so a fast eater has to search for every bite instead of swallowing it.
Amazon See the AWOOF Snuffle Mat on Amazon →Breakfast goes from forty seconds to ten minutes
I take a normal handful of kibble and pinch it out across the whole mat instead of dropping it in a heap. Pepper works the fabric with her nose, strip by strip. The first morning she was still at it ten minutes later. That is ten minutes where I am drinking coffee instead of answering a stare. From a plain bowl the same meal is gone in under a minute, and she is back to looking for a job.
A bored dog gets a job before the day starts
Pepper is a working mix and she gets bored fast. She gets two walks a day and she still needs something to do. Sniffing is real work for a dog, and ten minutes of nose work at seven in the morning takes the edge off in a way a bowl never did. I am not telling you it wears her out like a walk, because it does not, and it has not replaced either walk. But the day starts with her brain on instead of her hunting for something to shred.
The non-slip bottom holds its place on my tile
My kitchen floor is tile, and anything a dog pushes at slides. Pepper's slow feeder used to travel across the floor and knock into the baseboards. The AWOOF mat has a non-slip cloth bottom and it sits still while a dog works at it with both front feet planted. I still put it down in the same spot every morning, but I am no longer chasing it back to the middle of the room.
It folds into a bowl, so it goes out to the porch
The mat folds up into a bowl shape. That is the detail I did not think I would use and now use most. Cool morning, dog on the covered porch, kibble in the folded bowl, and she eats out there while I water the pots. It also goes in the car for a guest dog's first evening. At just under five ounces it is not something I think twice about carrying around.
Kibble is not the only thing you can hide in it
The listing says snacks or small toys, and I have only ever used food. Small treats, broken up, work just as well as kibble and are good for a dog who is new to the mat. For a gentler dog than Pepper, a couple of small toys tucked into the fabric would stretch the search out further. Either way the point is the same: the dog has to look for it, and looking takes time.
It cleans up at the sink, not in the bin
The main fabric is felt cloth, and the listing calls it easy to clean. My routine is boring: shake it out over the porch rail after every single use, hand wash it once a week, hang it over the rail to dry. It is not water resistant, so it is not a mat I would leave out in the rain or soak and forget about. Eighteen months of that and it is still in one piece and still gets put down every morning.
Eighteen inches is enough room to spread a meal out
The mat is a bit over eighteen inches square, which is more room than it sounds. Scatter the kibble in small pinches right to the edges and a meal takes a good while. Pile the same amount in the middle and a clever dog clears it in two minutes flat. Same mat, same kibble, completely different morning. How you load it matters as much as the mat itself.
It slows a gulper without teaching her a maze
Pepper had a slow feeder bowl for two years before this. She worked out the maze in about a week, and after that she spent her energy shoving the bowl around the tile instead of eating slowly. A snuffle mat is not a puzzle with a solution. Every morning is a fresh scatter, so there is nothing to memorise. The bowl went out to the garage eighteen months ago and has not come back in.
Guest dogs take to it in one morning
Guest dogs are usually two or three at a time here, and more often than not the new dog is a fast eater and a little unsure of the house. I put a mat down for each dog in separate spots, one dog per mat, and let them work. No instruction needed on the first morning. A dog who will not settle at a bowl will often settle at a mat, because the eating is a side effect of the searching. It is not a cure for anything. It just makes the first morning easier.
It survives daily use, as long as you pick it up after
Now the honest part. Pepper tugged one strip loose in month two. Nothing dramatic, one strip, but it happened. Since then the mat gets picked up the moment the kibble is gone. This is not a chew toy and the listing does not pretend it is. Given a dog that shreds anything flimsy, and eighteen months of daily breakfasts, one loose strip is a fair result. Left down as a general toy, a hard chewer will find it.
What I'd Skip
I would skip it if you want something you can leave on the floor. This is a feeding mat. It goes down, the dog works it, and it comes back up, which is exactly how I use it and exactly why it has lasted. I would also skip it if you are hoping it will stand in for a walk. It will not, and nothing on my shelf ever has. Pepper still gets both walks, eighteen months in, and she still chews at seven in the evening.
And skip it if the dog will be alone with it. Food toys in this house are always supervised, one dog per toy, in separate spots, so nobody guards and nobody steals. That rule has not bent for any product and it does not bend for this one.
Kibble that used to be gone in under a minute was still on the mat ten minutes later, and Pepper was still working for it.
Tomorrow morning, put breakfast in the fabric instead of the bowl
Eighteen months of daily use in a house full of guest dogs. Scatter it wide, pick it up when the kibble is gone, and the first meal of the day stops being a swallow.
Amazon See the AWOOF Snuffle Mat on Amazon →