Seven in the evening is the hour that decides how the rest of my night goes. I read from about seven, and in a house with two or three guest dogs plus Pepper, the difference between a quiet hour and a loud one is usually whether every dog has something to do with its mouth.
I have kept dogs for other people for nine years now, out of my own single story house in Tehachapi, California. I own five enrichment toys and I have thrown away more than that. The LICKIMAT Classic Soother is one of the survivors. It has been in my kitchen for three years, I own two, and I reach for it more than any other toy in the house when the evening gets restless. Below are ten reasons, in the order they actually matter to me.
See the mat that quiets bath time and a nervous first night
The LICKIMAT Classic Soother is the flat rubber mat I keep two of. Machine washable, about eight inches square, and thin enough to spread with the back of a spoon.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →It turns a ten minute job into a ten minute job the dog enjoys
Trimming nails on a dog that does not want its feet handled is a two person job unless you have a distraction that lasts. A thin layer of plain yogurt spread across the LICKIMAT gives me roughly ten minutes of licking, which is longer than the trim takes. The very first nail trim I did with it was the first one that did not end with me holding a squirming dog on the tile floor.
It gives a nervous guest dog something to do on its first evening
A dog dropped off at a stranger's house is not settled. It paces, it whines at the door, it follows me room to room. A mat with a smear of canned pumpkin on it does not fix that, and I would never say it did. What it does is give the dog something low stakes and pleasant to do for ten minutes while the house stops being new. Two or three of those over an evening and the dog is usually lying down by bedtime.
It lasts long enough to cover a bath
A bath is the other job I used to dread. A flat mat on the floor beside the tub, layered with peanut butter that has no xylitol in it, holds a dog's attention through the wet and the shampoo. Freeze it flat first and you get closer to twenty minutes. I keep two mats for that reason. One goes in the freezer while the other is in use.
Ten minutes is the number, and knowing the number helps
Nobody should buy this expecting a long lasting chew. A thin layer of plain yogurt or canned pumpkin is about ten minutes of licking. Frozen flat it is closer to twenty. Pepper is a six year old cattle dog mix and a hard chewer, and she gets through a fresh unfrozen mat in about the time it takes me to make tea. That is the honest size of the thing, and once you know it you stop being disappointed.
It works for the dogs in my house, from a beagle to a young lab
I have had everything from a guest beagle to a young lab staying the week on my kitchen floor. The mat suits all of them because the job is the same for all of them: slow down, use your tongue, keep your mouth busy. It is a small mat, about eight inches square, so a very large dog covers a lot of it in one pass. That is a size note, not a complaint.
It cleans up in the dishwasher, which is the whole test
I have thrown out toys that took twenty minutes of scrubbing to make safe again. This one goes on the top rack of the dishwasher and comes out clean. The surface is textured, which is the point, and texture is usually where food hides. It does not hide here. That single fact is why the mat stays in rotation and the silicone mat I bought the same year does not.
It is flat, so it does nothing clever and nothing wrong
There is no suction cup, no lid, no slider, no battery. It is a flat mat with a pattern pressed into it, about 3.35 ounces in weight. Some people want the suction cup version and I understand why. I do not, because a cup on the bottom of a tub is the exact part a determined dog attacks. I set mine on a folded towel on the tile and it stays where I put it.
It fills the gap between dinner at five and reading at seven
Dinner is at five in this house. Walks are mid morning and late afternoon. That leaves a stretch in the early evening when dogs have energy and I have a book. The LICKIMAT fills part of that stretch without adding another walk or another training session. It is not a substitute for either and I would not pretend otherwise, but it is a decent way to spend ten minutes of an evening.
You can portion a whole meal onto it if you have a fast eater
Scattering kibble across the surface slows a dog down in the same way a snuffle mat does, just with less mess on the floor. For a guest dog that inhales its food from a plain bowl, a thin press of kibble into the mat buys a few minutes. It is not my first choice for that job in my own house, but it works, and it costs nothing extra to try.
Two mats cover nearly everything, and three years in they are still whole
I bought mine three years ago and I own two. Between them they have handled every bath, every nail trim and a long run of nervous first evenings. There is one small chew mark on a corner of one mat, put there by a guest puppy. That is the only damage, and it happened because I left it down after it was clean. Now I pick the mat up the moment it is licked clean. That habit is the whole reason they have lasted.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the silicone suction cup lick mat, and I say that having bought one. It stuck to the tub wall for bath time and Pepper pulled it off in the first week and chewed the cup. That was the end of it. The LICKIMAT does not stick to anything, which sounds like a downgrade and is not, because there is nothing on it for a dog to grab.
I would also skip the idea that this is a chew toy. It is not. A determined dog can put a tooth through it, as the corner of my second mat will show. Food toys in my house are always supervised, always one dog per toy, and given to each dog in a separate spot so nobody guards or steals. The mat gets picked up the moment it is empty. Do that and it lasts years. Leave it down and it will not. It also has not replaced either of Pepper's walks, and no toy ever will.
A thin layer of yogurt is about ten minutes of licking. Frozen flat it is closer to twenty. That is the honest size of the thing.
If you want more detail on how the mat has held up, I wrote a longer piece on three years of daily use, and a separate comparison against the silicone suction mat that did not survive my house. Both are linked below.
Two mats, three years, and the only toy that makes nail trims easy
The LICKIMAT Classic Soother is a flat rubber mat, about eight inches square, machine washable and about 3.35 ounces. Spread it thin, freeze it flat if you want the longer version, and pick it up when the dog is done.
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