AWOOF Snuffle Mat Review: Months of Daily Use in a House Full of Dogs

Breakfast in this house used to last about forty seconds. Pepper is a six year old cattle dog mix, forty two pounds, and she ate like the bowl was about to be taken off her. Bowl down, bowl gone, and then she stood in the middle of the kitchen staring at me as though I had shortchanged her. The guest dogs were no better. A beagle staying the week would finish his own bowl and then start working the room, nose to the floor, looking for anything else he could find.

That is the exact problem the AWOOF snuffle mat is built for, and it is why I bought one eighteen months ago. I look after other people's dogs in my own home in Tehachapi, usually two or three at a time, and nine years of this has taught me that a bored dog with a full stomach is still a bored dog. Faster feeding was never what I wanted. I wanted the meal to take longer and give the dog something to do with its nose while it happened. The AWOOF mat does both. It has also picked up one small piece of damage in eighteen months of daily use, which I will get to, because you should know about it before you buy.

How I've Used It, Morning After Morning

The routine has not changed in eighteen months. At seven I put the mat down on the tile by the back door, measure out Pepper's usual scoop of kibble, and scatter it across the fabric in a slow sweep so it settles between the strips instead of sitting on top. Then I push the strips around with my fingers until I cannot see any kibble from standing height. If the dog can see it, the dog is finished in a minute and you have wasted your time.

The mat is 18.8 inches square and weighs just under five ounces, so it is light enough to flip over with one hand and big enough that a forty two pound dog has to move around it rather than plant herself in one spot. The bottom is a non-slip cloth. On my tile it stays where I put it while Pepper works, which matters more than I expected, because a mat that skates turns the meal into a chasing game and the kibble ends up under the fridge.

She gets her normal amount of food, nothing extra, and nothing rich. The mat is not a place to load up a pile of treats. It is a place to stretch the meal she was already going to eat, which is the whole reason it works on a weekday morning when I am not standing there with a clicker.

When she is done I pick it up straight away. That is not fussiness. Pepper is a hard chewer and she will worry at a loose strip the way she worries at anything made of cloth, so the mat does not stay on the floor once the food is gone. It gets shaken out over the porch rail, which dumps a surprising amount of kibble dust, and it goes back in the cupboard until the next morning.

I own one mat, so it goes down for one dog at a time. A guest beagle gets it in the hall while Pepper is out in the yard. A young lab staying the week gets it in the kitchen while Pepper is on the covered porch with a chew. Nobody shares, nobody is left alone with it, and I am in the room. That is how food toys work in this house and it is not a rule I bend.

The Folded Bowl, and Why I Do Not Use It

The mat folds into a bowl shape, and the fabric underneath is cloth rather than anything watertight. I tried the bowl once, out of curiosity, and went back to flat the same week. A flat mat spread across the tile makes the dog work the whole surface. A bowl shape piles the kibble into one place and the meal speeds right back up, which defeats the point for a dog who inhales.

Where the fold earns its keep is travel. The whole mat weighs less than five ounces, so it flattens into a bag or a suitcase and unfolds on a motel floor or a friend's kitchen. If you take your dog places, that is the feature you will actually use. If your dog eats every meal in the same kitchen like mine does, you will fold it once and forget about it.

Why Ten Minutes of Sniffing Does the Job

I am not a trainer and I am not going to tell you this mat fixes a behaviour. What I can tell you is what I watch happen at seven in the morning. Pepper does not gulp. She starts at one edge, nose down, and she has to slow down and use her nose instead of her mouth. The meal goes from forty seconds to about ten minutes, and she comes away from it settled rather than wound up.

The mat replaced a slow feeder bowl that Pepper used for two years. The bowl gave her a maze to solve, and she solved it in about a week. After that she learned to push it across the tile, and I would find it jammed against the back door with half the food scattered behind it. It went out to the garage eighteen months ago, when the mat arrived, and it has not come back inside.

What the mat does differently is keep changing. The kibble shifts as she nuzzles the fabric, so the second half of the mat is never laid out the same way the first half was. There is no pattern to memorize and no trick to learn once and be done with. That is the difference between a puzzle she solves and a job she does.

The rest of the day matters here too. I read from about seven in the evening, and whether I get to do that in peace has a lot to do with how the day started. A dog who spent ten minutes working for breakfast is a different animal by the time I sit down than a dog who swallowed a bowl in forty seconds and then looked for a job to invent.

Eighteen Months of Wear

The AWOOF mat is felt cloth with a non-slip cloth backing, and it is not water resistant, which is the detail that shapes how you look after it. Mine has been shaken out twice a day and hand washed once a week in the sink with a little dish soap and warm water. It air dries over the porch rail. In winter that takes most of a day, so I wash it after the morning feed and never before bed.

The first real wear showed up in month two, when Pepper got hold of one strip and pulled it loose from the backing before I noticed. That was my error, not the mat's. She shreds anything flimsy, and I left it down a minute too long. The loose strip has not spread into a hole and the mat still does its job, but I watch that spot now, and I pick the whole thing up the second the kibble is gone.

Beyond that strip, the fabric has held. The backing has not peeled away. The strips have gone a little softer and a little less upright than they were out of the package, which is what happens to cloth that gets washed every week for a year and a half. Nothing has come apart at a seam. For a lightweight cloth mat used daily by a strong dog, that is better than I expected, and I have thrown out tougher looking things in this house.

Where It Fits in a House Full of Guest Dogs

Most of the dogs who use this mat are not mine. A guest dog who eats too fast is the most common thing owners apologize for when they drop a dog off, and a meal that is over in half a minute often sets the tone for a restless morning. Putting the same kibble into the mat instead of a bowl changes the shape of that dog's day without changing the food at all, which means I am not guessing about someone else's dog's diet.

It also gives me something useful to hand a nervous guest. A dog that has just arrived and does not know the house yet will sometimes ignore a bowl entirely, and I have had shy dogs start working the mat within an hour of walking through the door. The work of it is calming, it keeps the nose busy, and it does not require the dog to stand still and eat while a stranger watches.

The one rule is the one I already gave you. One dog, one mat, separate spots, and me in the room. The AWOOF mat is not a chew toy and it is not a babysitter. If you have a dog who guards food, this is not something to leave down and walk away from.

The Two Things I Would Change

First, the strips. They are cloth, and cloth plus a determined chewer is a short conversation. One strip came loose in month two and I would like the whole surface anchored more firmly, because the mat is sturdy enough everywhere else that this is the only weak point I have found.

Second, drying time. Because it is not water resistant, once it is wet it stays wet. A weekly wash means a day without the mat unless I time it right, and a dog who expects the thing at every breakfast will notice. I now wash it right after she eats so it is dry by the next morning.

A bowl takes Pepper forty seconds. The mat takes her ten minutes, and she has to use her nose to get any of it.

Who This Is For

If you have a dog who inhales a meal and then goes looking for trouble, this is the first thing I would try. It suits food motivated dogs, dogs who need a job first thing in the morning, and guest dogs who arrive wound up. It suits a household that already supervises food toys and has somewhere to put the mat between meals.

It also suits anyone whose dog is on a measured amount of kibble and cannot have extra treats. The mat does not add food. It stretches what is already in the bowl, which is the reason it stayed in my rotation when other enrichment toys came and went.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog eats cloth. If you have a dog who swallows fabric, shreds soft toys, or works at seams until they give, this mat will not survive that and could be dangerous besides. Skip it if you want a food toy you can leave down and walk away from, because the AWOOF mat is not that and I would not pretend otherwise. Skip it if you are not willing to hand wash something once a week and set it out to dry. And skip it if your dog guards food, unless you are going to use it the way I do, one dog at a time, separate spots, with you in the room.