I filled Pip's bowl every morning for two months before I figured out the bowl was not the problem. He is a terrier-Chihuahua mix, thirteen pounds, about four years old, and he came home from the county shelter last December scared of the trash truck and scared of the front door closing behind me. Breakfast took him about ninety seconds. Then he would stand in the middle of the kitchen looking at me like I had forgotten something.
In February I went back to my Tuesday and Thursday volunteer shifts at the library. Three hours. Not a long time. Long enough that I wanted him to have something to do besides wait for the car to come back. What I bought was an AWOOF snuffle mat, and I want to be straight with you up front: it did not fix everything, the first week was a bust, and it is not a substitute for a walk. Nine months later it is still the first thing I reach for on those two mornings.
One more thing before the list. I am not a trainer and I am not a vet. Dr. Amaral gets the medical questions and I get the mornings. What follows is what I actually noticed with one small, anxious rescue dog in a one-story house in Plymouth, in the order I noticed it. The mat is 18.8 inches across, the base is non-slip cloth, and it lives in the cupboard by my back door.
Twice a week, ten minutes, and a dog with a job to do.
The AWOOF snuffle mat is what I reach for on my library mornings. 18.8 inches across, a non-slip cloth base, felt cloth that rinses out in the sink, and room for a whole breakfast of kibble.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →Breakfast went from ninety seconds to ten minutes
Pip's kibble used to be gone in about ninety seconds, and then he would follow me around while I made coffee, which sounds sweet and was not. The first Tuesday I poured his breakfast into the mat instead of the bowl, he quit after a minute and walked off. By the second week he was working it properly. Now it takes him about ten minutes. Ten minutes of a dog using his nose is a different animal from ten minutes of a dog waiting for me to be interesting.
It gives Tuesday and Thursday a shape he can read
On Tuesday and Thursday mornings he watches me open the cupboard by the back door. I did not plan that as a routine. It became one because I do the same thing at the same time twice a week, and he is the kind of dog who reads a room. Now the mat is the signal that my coat is coming off the hook, and he has something to do about it other than stand at the door listening for the car.
The non-slip base stays put on a slippery floor
I noticed this because my kitchen floor shows every skid mark. Pip is thirteen pounds and he pushes with his front feet when he is working a corner of the mat. It does not slide. The listing puts the mat at 18.8 inches across, which is wide enough that he can circle it and come at a spot from another angle instead of standing in one place and giving up.
It folds into a bowl when you want the harder version
The AWOOF mat folds up into a bowl, and I have tried it twice out of curiosity. Folded, the kibble sits in a loose pile in the middle and he has to nose it out of a smaller area. Flat, it is a scatter he has to search for. Same mat, two different jobs, though flat is how we use it.
It gives the nose the job the nose was built for
A dog's nose is most of what he has. Pip knows from the hallway whether I have been in the kitchen. The listing calls this encouraging natural foraging, and the plain version is that it asks him to do the thing he already wants to do. After ten minutes of working the mat he goes to the donut bed and sleeps. He is not a different dog. He is a tired dog, which is exactly what I wanted.
The bowl took ninety seconds. By the second week the mat was taking ten minutes, and he was tired in the good way afterward.
It took the pressure off the exact minute I leave
That first month back at the library, I would set the mat down, pick up my bag, and go. I stopped hovering at the door listening. Not because the mat fixed his worry about being alone, because it did not, and I would be lying if I said otherwise. It is because leaving got an order to it: mat, coat, door, every time. He is still not thrilled about the door. But he has something in front of him when it closes instead of an empty bowl.
It weighs so little that I actually put it away
The listing says 4.94 ounces. I have picked it up with two fingers while carrying a coffee in the other hand, so that number feels about right. It goes from the cupboard by the back door to the kitchen floor and back twice a week. If it had been heavy or stiff, I would have left it where it landed and it would have become one more thing on the floor. It is neither.
The first week was a flop, and that is the useful part
Honest section. The first week I was fairly sure I had wasted my money. Pip sniffed it, nosed at one fold, and walked off inside a minute. I left it on the floor anyway, out of stubbornness more than wisdom. Somewhere in the second week he started working it and did not stop until it was empty. If your dog quits on day two, that is not a verdict. Leave it down. Try again the next morning with his regular kibble, not a treat.
It replaced the chew toy he never once touched
Before the mat, I was leaving him a chew toy. He never touched it. Pip is not a chewer. He has never shredded anything in this house, not a slipper, not a tissue, not the mail. What he is, is a sniffer. I spent months buying for the dog I assumed I had instead of the dog standing in front of me. The mat asks him to do the one thing he already wants to do, and that is the whole reason it works.
Cleanup is five minutes at the sink, not a load of laundry
The listing says felt cloth, and it also says not water resistant, so I treat it that way. Shake it out over the sink, hand-rinse it, and leave it on the drying rack for about a day. It has never been in the washing machine or the dryer and I do not intend to test it. Twice a week. That is the entire maintenance story, and it is the reason I did not quietly stop using it back in March.
What I'd Skip
Two things I would skip. First, do not buy this expecting it to replace exercise. Pip still gets two walks a day in his harness, and the mat stays in the cupboard on the other five mornings. Ten minutes of sniffing is not a walk. Second, I would skip the travel framing. The listing mentions travel use, and the mat is light and portable, but mine has never left the kitchen. I do not call it a travel mat because for us it is a Tuesday and Thursday mat.
And if your dog eats fabric, this is not the thing for you. Pip is not a chewer, which is the only reason I can leave felt cloth on the floor with him unattended. If you are weighing this against a lick mat, they are different jobs and I own both. The lick mat came in the spring, it gets a little plain yogurt on weekends, and he finishes it in about five minutes. The AWOOF mat is slower and harder and it comes out on the mornings I leave the house. I would not swap one for the other, and I would not expect either of them to do the work of a walk.
If your dog empties the bowl in ninety seconds, start here.
Nine months in, this is still the thing that gets used on the two mornings I am out of the house. Non-slip cloth base, folds into a bowl, rinses clean in the sink.
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