The Peanut Butter Mat That Bought Me Ten Quiet Minutes

The hard part of raising a rescue puppy, it turns out, is not the housetraining. It is the five minutes before I walk out the door. Moose came home in early March at about four months old and settled into our ranch house in Myrtle Beach faster than I had any right to expect. Then I would pick up my keys, and he would pace, and whine, and follow me into the hallway. I bought the LICKIMAT Classic Soother and Buddy two-pack in April because a friend told me it had bought her a few quiet minutes. I did not believe her. I expected a smeared kitchen floor.

Here is what it actually is. Two flat mats, eight inches by eight, made of TPR rubber with a textured surface molded into the top. The listing calls the pair the Soother and the Buddy and says to hand wash them. Mine get washed in the sink with the regular dish soap and come out clean. You spread something soft across the texture and the dog has to work at it instead of gulping it down. I use plain yogurt, a spoonful of wet food, or a thin layer of peanut butter spread with the back of a spoon, and sometimes I put the whole thing in the freezer overnight. The two textures are different enough that Moose works at one longer than the other, though I could not tell you why.

The first time I set one down, Moose looked at me like I had lost my mind. Then he put his nose in it and did not come up for eleven minutes. I know it was eleven minutes because I was standing at the counter with my keys in my hand, watching the clock. That is not a cure for anything. But it was eleven minutes in which he did not pace and I did not feel guilty.

For the first couple of weeks I used it the obvious way, which is to say whenever I wanted him occupied. While I made dinner. While I folded laundry. While I sat in the chair by the window with my crochet bag and he worked at the mat instead of my slippers. He is fed and healthy and food motivated, and a mat with something spread on it is the closest thing to a switch I have found for turning a busy puppy down a notch.

Eleven minutes, keys in my hand, and for once he was not watching the door.

The errand routine came first. I fill a mat, set it on the kitchen floor, sit nearby while he works at it, and then I pick it up before I open the door. That last part matters. A LICKIMAT is not a chew toy, and I have never left Moose alone with one. He is a strong chewer who went through a kitchen table leg in March, and I am not interested in learning what he would do to a rubber square with nobody watching.

The second use found me by accident. We had a stretch of thunderstorms in June and Moose hated every one of them. He paced the hallway and panted and could not settle anywhere. I started pulling a mat out of the freezer when the radar looked ugly, and it gave him something to do with his mouth other than pant. It did not make the thunder stop and it did not make him brave. It made a hard twenty minutes a little easier to sit through. Gary says I fuss. Gary is not the one who comes home to a chewed baseboard.

The third use is nail trims, which I do at the kitchen table with Gary holding the back end. Moose gets a mat with a thin smear of peanut butter and I get about four nails before he notices what is happening. We finish in stages. My vet's office will do the whole thing if I would rather, and some days I would rather.

Two things I would flag. The LICKIMAT mats are eight inches square, so a big dog finishes quickly, and the only version that lasts for us is a frozen one. They also hold onto a smell if you leave them sitting. I rinse mine as soon as he is done, and both still look new after months of near daily use, alternating one while the other dries.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you the LICKIMAT is a management tool and not training, and I was disappointed by that at first. A mat does not teach a puppy to settle on his own. What taught Moose to settle was the crate, a frozen KONG, and three months of doing the same boring routine every time I left the house. The mat made that routine easier to run and gave me something to hand him other than my ankle.

I would also tell you it is not for every dog. Some dogs lick a mat for two seconds and walk off. Some dogs chew a hole in anything soft. If your dog is genuinely panicking when you leave, or has bitten someone, or is scared in a way that is not getting better, skip the gadgets and call your vet or a certified trainer. I am a retired dental office manager who reads labels. That is my whole qualification. What I can tell you is what happened in our house.

And I would tell you to buy the two pack if you can. One is always in the sink. Wash them by hand, pick them up when the dog is done, and do not expect a rubber mat to do a job you have not taught yet. It is the smallest thing in our whole routine, and some days it is the one that gets us out the door.