How to Make Your Pet a Durable Snuffle Mat

Pets love to play, and this DIY snuffle rug allows you to feed them, engage their brains, satisfy their play drive, and keep them busy so you can get things done! The concept of a snuffle mat is simply a mat with some form of obstructing material on top, usually made of fabric. Dry treats or food can be scattered over the mat and worked down into its depths, so your pet will have to excavate it like they're discovering buried treasure.

Snuffle mats are best known as an enrichment activity for dogs, but all sorts of pets can have a great time with these, including cats, ferrets, and birds. If you have a pet who likes to dig, root around, scent detect, or tear things apart, you may have a pet who'd enjoy a snuffle mat.

You'll find snuffle mats for sale all over the Internet these days, but they're generally extremely lightweight and made of stitched felt. For pets who like to tear and pull, they can come apart at the seams in an instant, or they can easily be flipped over to scatter all the delicious treats and defeat the purpose.

In the second photo above, Maggie the dog is investigating the DIY snuffle mat, and next to it is a commercially produced model in felt. You can see how shallow the fabric is; there's not really a way to hide food in that at all, and it quickly ripped when confronted with the awesome might of a corgi puppy.

The DIY mat is instead a heavy-duty, durable, versatile snuffle you can make yourself to suit your pet's individual needs.

We'll get into some customization options and things to consider as we go, but for now here's what you'll need:

• Anti-fatigue mat with drainage holes. You're looking for the heavy rubber mats used in places like bars and commercial kitchens. I purchased this one from a major hardware store for about $30, and it's large enough to make 9 individual sized mats, or whatever combination of larger mats you'd like to make.
• Fleece fabric. I buy whatever I find in the remnants bin at the fabric store; usually solid colors are cheapest, and you get different results with thinner versus thicker fleece. I'd estimate it takes about a yard and a half of fabric per square. Make sure you purchase use FLEECE fabric, not felt or flannel or any type of cotton. Fleece is a heavy type of polyester most commonly used for things like winter clothing, and it resists moisture (drool) very well and is also strong and not easy to shred. You could probably use other fabric if you want to try it, but fleece is the best option I've found. Or you could try frayed rope or some other material you know your pet enjoys that is safe for them.
• Scissors (or knife, box cutter, whatever works for you), for cutting the mat into more manageable pieces. It cuts pretty easily, your standard household scissors should be fine.
• Long measuring stick or ruler, not required but very helpful for making quick, straight cuts.
• Fabric cutting tools. You can use scissors, but you don't want to. You'll be doing a LOT of cutting so your hand will wear out quickly, and fleece also ruins scissors. I recommend using a rotary cutter and a cutting mat, which you can find at most crafting/fabric type stores. (I have a dedicated cutting mat for cutting snuffle fleece because it sticks in all of the cut marks like crazy.) This can be a time-consuming DIY so make it fast where you can!

Make sure to have an assistant inspect your materials. My cat Magpie has certified this mat is in acceptable condition.

Using household scissors or your sharp tool of choice, cut your anti-fatigue mat down to whatever size you'd like.

For use with dogs a single square is usually fine, or for larger breeds or aggressive toy-shakers you might want to use two or three square sections together. If you have a situation like multiple ferrets and want to create a snuffle mat paradise for them to burrow, you could keep the entire mat in one piece, but it will be quite heavy, and cumbersome to work with while you're making it. It might be easier to cut them down and then just arrange them together on the floor for playtime.

This is going to take awhile, so buckle in. You can cut your fabric into strips of whatever size you like. Begin again with the approval of your assistants. Magpie is supervising, while Mouse is helping by sitting on my materials (presumably comfort-testing?).

Cut your fabric into more or less uniform strips. This is easiest to do with the fabric folded over once or twice; figure out what method works best for you. The shorter the cutting strokes, the better; cutting lengthwise gets really frustrating really quickly. Don't be afraid of making things irregular, either; these work best when they're interestingly messy.

The second photo here is a picture of three (more or less) finished mats, so you can get a sense of what results you'll get from different lengths.

MAT 1: For animals who are curious and interested in searching out food (gray and green mat furthest left)

The green pieces are 2 inches (about 5 cm) by 21 inches (53 cm) and the gray are 2 inches (5 cm) by 15 inches (38 cm). The differing lengths are entirely down to the size of my fabric remnants; they were just slightly different and these lengths were the easiest way to cut them. This is the most challenging kind of mat because it gets very layered and very deep. Animals that love to dig in and burrow will probably love it. In my experience, larger dogs like this type, and so do adventurous cats like my Mouse.

MAT 2: For animals who need things to be easy (mat with patterned fabric in the center)

This mat is made with much thinner fleece, and in the photo it's not finished (I ran out of fabric), but you can get an idea of how much flatter and less challenging it is. For animals that give up easily on things like puzzle toys, this may be a better option. It's also less challenging for smaller animals or animals that may not really want to go into the mat. (This lighter and easier style works well with birds, who may want to move the fabric around more with their feet rather than rooting in with their mouth like a dog would.)

MAT 3: For a medium-difficult challenge (gray, green, and patterned mat furthest right)

The green pieces are 2 inch (5 cm) by 13 inch (33 cm), and the gray are 2 inch (5 cm) by 15 inch (38 cm). It's not a big difference from mat 1, but you can see the pile of the mat is a bit more shallow, so this mat will be less challenging. It's a good option for smaller animals like cats, or smaller dogs.

Thread each end of a single fleece strip through two adjacent holes. You can make the mat very thick with fleece by tying every possible piece, like I've done in the third photo, or you can make it thinner by just tying less pieces on, leaving them spaced out more. For a pet who's more hesitant with puzzle toys like this, you can start with a fairly thinned out mat until they get the hang of it, then add more strips until you've filled it up.

I recommend starting in one corner and working your way across evenly; if you want to do a pattern just pick up the different colors as you go, instead of blocking out once and then going back in and trying to fill in the gaps. Working around strips that are already in can be really difficult, as you can see in the last photo things get really thick as you start to get it filled up.

I usually knot my strips with a single overhand or square knot; I've never had a need to double-knot them, and making it only a single knot cuts down on the amount of work you're doing. But by all means use whatever knot you'd like! If you want to double-knot, you may want to make sure your strips are longer; my 13-inch ones were shorter than was really comfortable to work with when knotting.

To make it a tear-apart toy:

For animals that love to tear things apart, you can set up your mat specifically to make it easier for them to pull pieces of the fleece out (assuming you want to be constantly tying them back on!). You can just run the fleece through the holes without knotting it, as the weight and rubber of the mat will give some resistance, or you can tie your strips on in a very lopsided fashion so one end is long and the other is short, which makes the pieces easier to pull out. Experiment by giving them a good yank yourself and see what works out best for your pet.

You can also use one of your pieces of mat to thread with another material entirely. My cat Mouse just loves shredding paper and cardboard with her teeth, so I could cut a bunch of strips of brown paper and leftover shipping boxes, and make a mat of paper delights for her instead.

Now it's time to pack some food in and let your pet(s) go to town! I typically use toys like this as a daily feeder for a pet's kibble, so you're just giving them their normal ration of food and not overloading them with treats (just scatter a few tasty tidbits in there as an occasional jackpot to keep them motivated). Different pets will have different reactions to these mats; you can see in the first photo that both my cats are investigating the mat, but the black one, Magpie, ended up giving up on it early. (When it comes to puzzle toys she's definitely a quitter.) The gray one, Mouse, on the other hand just really got in there, shoving her whole head in to get to the tastiness.

It's easy to put too much food in one of these, so while you're first using the mat it's a good idea to ration out of the food ahead of time and then put it all in the mat at once, so you're not accidentally feeding too much. Stick to dry food, dry treats, freeze-dried nuggets, etc. unless you want to thoroughly wash it every day. It's definitely not a toy for wet food!

Introducing the mat

When you're first introducing the mat, it's a good idea to make it easy, scattering some food deeper into the mat but leaving a lot of it as easy pickings on or near the top. Once your pet understands the game, bury things deeper. I love the little drain holes on these mats because you can tuck treats all the way down into those, for the really intrepid and food-motivated pets.

As with any other toy, supervise your pets when they're using this mat, especially when it's first introduced. Make sure they're not chewing off pieces of fleece and swallowing them. If you have a dog who is a heavy chewer, they may find the rubber mat very enticing; make sure to teach them that this mat is for finding food, not for chewing up and eating. Redirecting them back to the food; adding some more appealing treats for them to hunt out often does the trick. If your pets are prone to playing destructively with the mat when there's no food in it, put it away when it's not actually in use.

Some pets will start destroying it out of boredom when there's no food in it; others will use it as a bed or pillow. Just make sure you know how your pet reacts to it and use your judgment to decide what's safest for them.

Care and washing

You can use a hose to spray the mat down thoroughly and leave in the sun to dry, or I've successfully run these through the washing machine plenty of times along with cat beds and other things, though do be mindful of whether the weight of the mat will unbalance your washing machine. Again, air dry and don't put it in the dryer!

You could also remove each strip and run the fabric parts through the washing machine and dryer, and wash the rubber mat with your choice of pet-safe disinfectant, which would be a good idea if it really needs a deep clean or needs to be thoroughly disinfected.

That's it!

I hope you and your pets enjoy this snuffle mat if you make it, and if you do please post pictures in the comments below! I don't personally have access to any ferrets and I'm dying to see some doing a bit of snuffling. ;D