Are lick mats good for cats?
You might have seen lick mats in a pet store and wondered what they are, how to use them, and if they are good for cats.
I’ll get into all the details below, but the most important thing to know is that lick mats can be a great enrichment tool for cats. Not all cats will enjoy using a lick mat, but it’s probably worth the small investment to see if your cat would like to lick.
Even though I am a fan of lick mats, I don’t agree with all of the claims that lick-mat manufacturers make about their products, nor all of the “information” that can be found online about this topic. Lick mats can be a good thing for bored cats or cats who eat too fast, but some of the claims are exaggerated or just plain false.
Also, lick mats have proven to be dangerous in the paws of the wrong cat. I’ll discuss all of it in this comprehensive post about lick mats.
What is a lick mat?
(*This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.)
A lick mat is a thin pad made of rubber, silicone, plastic, and sometimes even stainless steel, that has a textured surface.
The surface patterns vary from raised bumps, zig zags, swirls, and honeycomb, to more intricate designs that depict entire scenes, including one, by Soda Pup, that portrays a spouting whale, swimming amongst ocean waves. Still others have repeating patterns – like hearts, daisies, and puzzle-piece shapes, covering their surfaces.
Your job is to spread food on the mat, so that it gets caught in all the negative space formed by these raised designs. The cat’s job is to dislodge the trapped food by continuous licking.
In addition to fancy designs on the front of the lick mat, some have suction cups on the back to help them stick to a slippery floor, counter, or wall.
What are the benefits of lick mats?
There are two basic benefits of lick mats: slow feeding and enrichment.
Using a lick mat for slow feeding
Some cats get very excited about getting food and they eat it too quickly.
Cats who eat quickly sometimes regurgitate whatever they’ve just wolfed down. Regurgitating is not the same as vomiting, by the way, even if they look similar.
Vomiting versus regurgitating
Vomiting involves food that has made its way into the stomach for digestion, and involves the forceful contraction of the abdominal muscles to bring it back up. Whatever comes up typically looks partially digested, or contains yellow bile.[1]
Regurgitated food, on the other hand, only makes it as far as the esophagus. Food that is going down, just reverses direction and comes back up. Regurgitating is an involuntary behavior, and it’s easy for the cat compared to the effort of vomiting.
You can sometimes tell that food is regurgitated rather than vomited because it’s covered in slimy saliva and tube-shaped, since it never made it to the stomach.[2]
Note that eating too quickly is only one potential cause of chronic regurgitation. If your cat regurgitates frequently, and attempts to slow him down don’t help, reach out to your veterinarian for advice.
Here’s more information about vomiting in cats.
How lick mats help speedy eaters
The pattern in a lick mat traps food and makes it hard for a cat to eat her meal quickly.
Instead of gulping a big chunk of wet food plopped down in the middle of her food dish, a cat will have to really work to get the food out of all the crevices.
Using a lick mat as enrichment
Cats are basically wild animals. We domesticated dogs about 30,000 years ago, but we didn’t even let cats into the house until 1947, when cat litter was invented.
We changed dogs when we domesticated them. We changed them physically – Chihuahuas look very little like their wolf ancestors – and we changed their brains and their behaviors.
When we “domesticated” cats, we just encouraged them to hang around our barns and granaries to keep the mice away. But cats are basically what they’ve always been: wild animals, used to spending their days hunting and prowling, not sitting on the couch.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe that keeping cats indoors versus outdoors is the right thing to do. Read this post on indoors versus outdoors for cats if you want to know more. But indoor cats require enrichment.
What is enrichment?
I like this definition of environmental enrichment:
“Environmental enrichment is the provision of equipment or enhancement to an animal’s living area with the goal to improve animal welfare.”[3]
In other words, enrichment is any thing, added to an animal’s world, that makes her life better.
“Alternative food presentation” is one way to provide enrichment: in other words, finding some other way to offer food to a cat, other than dumping it into a bowl.
Puzzle feeders are one form of alternative food presentation. Snuffle mats, like this fun little number with flowers and ruffles, are another choice. And lick mats are a third way to provide food to a cat without just handing it to him on a silver (or stainless steel) platter.
How are puzzle feeders, snuffle mats, and lick mats enriching? They require a cat to focus and methodically problem solve to get their food.
What DON’T lick mats do?
Get a lick mat for your cat to try, but don’t believe all the hype. Lick mats do enough good things for cats without having to solve world peace, too. Here are some claims about lick mats that are false:
Lick mats do not improve oral health in cats
According to the folks who make things up about their products, lick mats stimulate saliva production, which in turns keeps a cat’s tongue, teeth, and gums clean.
An alternative claim is that the ridges on a lick mat scrape the plaque off of teeth.
Nonsense. There is zero scientific proof that lick mats improve oral health. It has been argued that some of the treats used in a lick mat could theoretically make periodontal disease worse.[4]
You must brush your cat’s teeth to help prevent periodontal disease. Period. There’s no easy way out of this chore. Read this post about bad breath in cats for more information about helping your cat maintain good oral health.
Licking a mat does not release a calming hormone
If licking a mat was the answer to stress and anxiety, I’d get myself one.
There are unproven claims about how the extended licking action promoted by lick mats causes a calming hormone to be released in a cat or dog’s brain. There is no scientific evidence that licking releases feel-good hormones, or hormones of any kind.
Where this crazy idea about licking might have come from
I suspect that this wrong idea about licking may have actually come from well-intentioned efforts to curb compulsive behaviors like overgrooming, which can be a very serious problem in cats. You can read about excessive grooming in this post.
Dr. Nicolas Dodman, arguably one of the world’s most famous veterinary behaviorists, admitted in an article in Tufts Now, to getting it wrong, too.
He’d been working with a cat who’d begun compulsive grooming after the family adopted a second cat. Dr. Dodman, who hypothesized that the cat was licking compulsively because the behavior produced endorphins, gave the cat a drug to block the hormone.
Incredibly, it worked! Dr. Dodman believed the success of the therapy confirmed that licking does, indeed, produce “feel-good” hormones.
But he was wrong.
He later learned that he was actually blocking the neurotransmitter glutamate,[5] a compound responsible for solidifying memories. Licking, as far as anyone knows, does not produce endorphins.
Maybe lick mats just keep cats from exhibiting anxious behaviors
A cat who is licking a mat may appear to be exhibiting fewer anxious behaviors because she is busy doing something else.
But keeping a cat busy is not the same thing as actually reducing anxiety.
What kinds of food items can you use with a lick mat?
You shouldn’t give a cat any food in a lick mat that you wouldn’t feed him under other circumstances.
Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning that they are obligated to eat meat. They eat meat out of necessity. Dogs and humans, by contrast, are omnivores, meaning we can eat all foods. “Omni” means “all.”
Cats evolved to have very specialized digestive systems and unique nutritional needs. Most of the foods that shouldn’t be on a cat’s menu cause digestive upset and take up calories that should have been spent on nutrition.
So, even though many websites recommend using yogurt or cream cheese, for example, in a lick mat for a cat, I don’t recommend doing so. Read these posts to learn why:
Good food choices for a lick mat for a cat include:
- Canned cat food – this is the best choice
- Cooked eggs – no seasonings; small amounts as a treat only
- Sardines – rinse if canned in oil, no more than one or two per week
- Lickable, squeezable treats – like Churu
- Fish – baked, boiled, grilled; small amounts as a treat only
- Bone broth – pet types only, as bone broth for humans may contain onions and garlic which are toxic for cats
- Pumpkin puree – do not use pumpkin pie filling: only pure pumpkin; start with a ½ tsp to see if your cat tolerates it. Do not exceed 4 tsp of pumpkin puree
- Meat baby foods – read the ingredients: they should contain only meat and water or broth
Lick mat calories count, too
Any food you put into a lick mat needs to be factored into your cat’s total calorie count for the day.
I go into detail about how to figure out how much to feed your cat each day in this post. If you’re using a lick mat to replace a traditional food bowl, then you don’t have to worry about extra calories. Just feed your cat’s regular meal, or a portion of the meal, on the lick mat.
But if you’re using a lick mat to serve treats, make sure you don’t go over your cat’s calorie allowance for treats each day. The lick mat is so fun, and it’s very easy to overdo it.
Cat lick mat product recommendations
Food grade and BPA free
Buy lick mats made of food-grade materials. If they’re plastic, make sure they’re BPA free.
Dishwasher safe
Buy dishwasher-safe models, if you have a dishwasher.
Suction cups or no suction cups?
Consider whether you want suction cups or not: they can prevent the mat from scooting around the floor, but they also stick to the counters when you’re preparing the mat. I find that when I try to pry the suctioned mat off of my counter, some of the food gets flicked back onto the counter.
Small lick mats only
Cats only need tiny lick mats. No need to spend money on the larger ones. Here are some possibilities that meet the above criteria:
- MateeyLife Lick Mats – set of 2 with a spatula
- Lickimat Casper & Felix – fish shaped mats
- OHMO Lick Mat – set of 2, fun space designs
- PEGGY11 Stainless Steel Lick Mat
Lick-mat friendly foods:
- INABA Churu Chicken Variety Pack
- Hartz Delectables Squeeze Up Treats
- Caru Grass-Fed Beef Bone Broth
- Nulo Grain-Free Turkey Bone Broth
- Nature’s Logic Powdered Chicken Bone Broth
- Beech-Nut Baby Food Chicken and Chicken Broth
- Weruva Pumpkin Patch Up!
- Seasons Sardines in Water – No salt added
Can I freeze my lick mat for my cat?
Freezing a lick mat offers a couple of benefits:
Freezing allows you to prep in advance
You can prepare several lick mats at once, and store them in the freezer. If your cat is looking bored, you can pull one right out of the freezer and it’s ready to serve.
Frozen lick mats take longer to enjoy
It takes longer to lick away frozen food than softer, room-temperature food. Freezing allows your cat to savor his meal or treat even longer.
BUT – your cat might not like cold, frozen-solid food. Let your cat decide if she likes her lick mats frozen.
What you should always do/never do with a lick mat?
Always supervise your cat with his lick mat
Don’t leave your cat home alone with a full lick mat, thinking you’ll be keeping her busy while you’re away. Don’t walk into the next room for too long if you’ve just given your cat a lick mat.
Why? Not every cat will use good judgment when presented with a thing that smells like his favorite treats. I don’t know how it’s possible, but some cats have chewed off and swallowed pieces of lick mat.[6]
There is Tex, who somehow ate a piece of his lick mat without anyone noticing, until he started vomiting. You can see the piece of lick mat blocking his intestines here. It’s the white rectangle in the X-ray about halfway down the page.
Here’s a whole Reddit thread about cats who have eaten their silicone lick mats. Don’t assume your cat is any smarter than these cats.
Never leave food out too long
Wet cat food spoils in about two hours. Do not leave a lick mat out longer than two hours.
Note that because food is spread thinly in the lick mat, it will likely dry out sooner than the two-hour limit. Your cat might not find it palatable as it starts to dry out.
Scrub, scrub, scrub your lick mat or wash it in the dishwasher
Warm food and crevices: you’ve just about created the perfect environment for bacteria to flourish.
When your cat is done with his lick mat, put it in the dishwasher (if you have one) if the product is labeled dishwasher safe. Otherwise, use a dishwashing brush and really, really scrub the mat clean.
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Dawn LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who always seems to have a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her blog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians better understand and care for the special beings they share their lives and homes with. Her cat-products business, Cat in the Box, sells beautiful, well-made, and award-winning products that she designed to meet the biological needs of cats.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Hamer, Ashley. “Why Do Cats Throw up so Much?” LiveScience, Purch, 7 Jan. 2024, www.livescience.com/animals/cats/why-do-cats-throw-up-so-much.
[2] “Cat Regurgitation.” PetMD, www.petmd.com/cat/symptoms/cat-regurgitation. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.
[3] Desforges, E. Challenges and Solutions Surrounding Environmental Enrichment for Dogs and Cats in a Scientific Environment. Animals 2021, 11, 2980. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11102980
[4] Andrew. “Lick Mats For Dogs & Cats: A Vet’s View.” Walkerville Vet, 3 Sept. 2023, www.walkervillevet.com.au/blog/lick-mat-pros-cons/.
[5] “Cats under Pressure: The Genetic Origins of Excessive Grooming.” Tufts Now, 24 Aug. 2012, now.tufts.edu/2012/08/24/cats-under-pressure.
[6] Andrew. “Lick Mats For Dogs & Cats: A Vet’s View.”