Benefits of Dog Lick Mats

Over the five years since their introduction, lick mats have become standard tools for treating anxiety and boredom in dogs and cats. These textured flat surfaces made from rubber, TPR rubber, or silicone come in various shapes and sizes with grooves, ridges, obstacles, and unique textures that encourage licking. 

The ridged design allows pet owners to smear soft foods into small cracks, creating an enriching treat experience where pups must work harder using their tongue. Most feature suction cups to attach to the floor or wall, while the pattern on top helps trap food and makes it hard to eat quickly. Unlike slow feeders focused on food seeking or foraging, these mats specifically promote licking behaviour instead of unwanted behaviours, helping alleviate boredom and anxiety. The textured surfaces lock spreadable food in place, transforming ordinary treats or dinner into engaging activities.

Benefits of Dog Lick Mats

Understanding the advantages of lick mats helps pet owners make informed decisions about incorporating these tools into their dog's routine for optimal wellness.

Mental Stimulation and Anxiety Relief

Research shows licking releases relaxing hormones and endorphins that genuinely calm down your dog during stressful situations. The calming effect proves particularly useful during thunderstorms or vet visits, providing genuine reduction of anxiety and stress while helping alleviate boredom.

Entertainment and Enrichment

This enriching treat experience proves entertaining for a long time, keeping healthy treats in small volumes that last long time. The mental stimulation and mental engagement keep pets entertained, reduce boredom, and prevent destructive behavior effectively as environmental enrichment tools.

Feeding and Digestive Health

They function as excellent slow feeders that promote slower feeding of both wet food and dry food, improving digestion and helping prevent issues like bloating and choking when dogs eat too quickly, while aiding digestion and encouraging slower feeding.

Oral Health Benefits

The constant licking creates saliva that helps with protecting teeth and gums, freshening breath, and promoting better oral hygiene by reducing plaque buildup. These benefits support overall dental wellness for dogs and cats alike.

Weight Management Support

The weight management benefits shine when spreading healthy treats like mashed banana, pumpkin, peanut butter, or Greek yogurt across a larger surface area, helping control portion sizes and support weight management efforts effectively.

Training and Behavioral Applications

Their versatility extends to raw feeding, serving as training aids offering rewarding treats during training sessions, reinforcing positive behavior through positive reinforcement. Pet owners successfully use them during crate training, helping dogs become accustomed to car trips.

Practical Distraction Tool

As a distraction aid, they make bath, nail clipping, grooming, and vet visits significantly easier for food-motivated pets. They serve as useful distractions making activities more manageable, transforming challenging moments into positive experiences.

Multi-Purpose Benefits

Recommended for both dogs and cats, these boredom buster tools provide entertainment and distraction while delivering both mental benefits and physical benefits. This simple, effective way helps enhance your dog's daily life during temporary situations like fireworks and thunderstorms when owners leaving house.

What Should I Put on the Lick Mat?

The food choices available to smear across dogs lick mat are wonderfully diverse. Starting with dog's kibbles, depending on which mat chosen, place kibbles whole or mushed down on lick mats. Dog's favourite wet food works beautifully when smeared across the textured mat into the grooves. Additional options include dog friendly peanut butter, coconut oil, oats, and berries for variety. 

Freeze the mat for a longer lasting experience that challenges pets further. The popular Lickimat range offers a range of different lick mats with different textures to suit various preferences. Their lickimat range includes the specialized splash mat perfect for grooming and baths since it can be suctioned to the wall, plus wobble bowls and slow feeder bowls for mealtime enrichment.

Do Lick Mats Improve Oral Health?

LickiMat's manufacturers claim that stimulating saliva production can clean the tongue, teeth, and gums, but veterinary literature on what actually keeps pets' mouths clean suggests this statement lacks basis in fact. The treats used on these mats could logically make periodontal disease worse, not better. 

Periodontal disease in dogs and cats follows the same course as in humans—one wouldn't expect teeth to be better from licking peanut butter off a rubber tray. The claim about scraping tongue to freshen pet's breath seems ludicrous based on 30 years of vet experience; bad breath caused by tongues remains unheard of. While manufacturers tout oral health benefits, reality suggests otherwise.

Are Lick Mats Calming?

Major concerns with lick mats involve the contrast between being busy and being happy. While these products excel at preventing anxiety in stressful situations, it's a big claim that such products improve anxiety already present. Similar to complaints about Adaptil and Feliway, such claims might stop dog owners and cat owners from choosing remedies that genuinely help. 

The manufacturer claim that "extended licking action" from LickiMat releases a "calming hormone" lacks supporting evidence—there's no proof of anxiety reduction with lick mats or any hormone released. A mat keeps them busy and less prone to expressing anxious behaviours, but that's not the same thing. These complaints are minor quibbles compared to concerns about safety in two ways.

Intestinal Obstruction & Hygiene

This past month, two animals required veterinary attention as a result of lick mats. The dog Murphy was left alone with his lick mat for just a moment when he chewed up and swallowed it. His owners immediately saw what happened and brought down him—that's his vomit in the picture at the start. Tex, a cat, ate piece of his lick mat without anyone noticing. When he started vomiting, his owner realised something was wrong. 

The x-ray below showed a white rectangle in his belly—the piece blocking his intestines. A picture shows the piece matched with the rest of the mat after surgical removal took out it. Without major surgery, both faced a lot of trouble. No surprise here—vets have said anything flavoured like food but not digestible is extremely dangerous. The newly updated list includes corn cobs, satay sticks, icecream sticks, meat wrapping, cooked bones, and lick mats.

What Can I Use Instead of a Lick Mat?

Veterinary professionals are not opposed to using food as distraction when pets need to be left alone. Recommendations include slow feeder bowls, Kong Wobblers, Bobalots, and other products with long track records of proven safety. 

Pet owners can hide food around the house or garden for natural foraging enrichment. To be fair, LickiMat does make a "Tuff version" and a keeper tray to make chewing harder. However, veterinarians have seen both red rubber Kongs and black rubber Kongs destroyed—they know how destructive a determined dog can be when motivated. Consider these alternatives carefully based on pets' chewing habits and supervision availability.

Conclusion

In conclusion, dog lick mats can be a great tool for keeping pets calm, entertained, and mentally engaged when used safely and under supervision. They turn snack time into a fun, enriching activity that can help reduce boredom and stress. 

However, it’s important for owners to stay cautious, as chewing or swallowing parts of the mat can be dangerous. Always choose the right material, supervise your pet, and use healthy treats. With the right approach, lick mats can add both joy and relaxation to your dog’s daily routine.