Lickimat Splash Turquoise

The difficult part of washing a dog is not the washing. It is that the dog would rather be somewhere else and there is nothing in a bath worth staying for, so the whole thing becomes a wrestle that both of you remember next time.

The Splash is made from natural rubber with a suction cap on the back, which sticks it to any hard surface — tiles, glass, laminate — at whatever height suits. You spread a soft treat across the surface and the dog has to find every bit of it with their tongue, which takes considerably longer than eating the same treat out of a bowl. Lickimat suggest freezing it in summer to stretch that out further. It is listed for cats, puppies, and small and medium dogs.

• Made from natural rubber
• Suction cap fixes it to tiles, glass and laminate
• Listed for cats, puppies, and small and medium dogs
• Spread with a soft treat rather than filled
• Lickimat suggest freezing it in summer for a longer-lasting version

On supervision, and on which dogs it is actually for. Lickimat's own instruction is to watch a pet the first few times until you are sure they will not chew the mat rather than lick it — it is rubber, and a determined chewer is the wrong animal for it. It is listed for small and medium dogs, so a large dog is outside what the maker specifies. And the only measurements supplied to us are 5cm and 19cm, with no note of which is which, so we cannot tell you how much wall or bath it will cover.

Who it's for: owners of a dog or cat that cannot settle for a bath, a brush, a nail trim or a groomer's table, and who want something to occupy the animal at the height the job is happening.