I have two cats. Mabel eats so fast she barfs, and Hazel is so anxious she hides under the bed if a spoon drops. I used the LickiMat Slomo Cat for six weeks with both, and the mat turned out to be a different product for each of them — a slow feeder for Mabel and a anxiety tool for Hazel — which is why the same cheap square of rubber has earned a permanent spot on my counter.
What the Slomo Cat actually is
It is a flat silicone mat, roughly seven inches square, with a textured surface of shallow grooves and a soft bowl shape in the middle. You spread wet food, yogurt, squeeze tube treats, or mashed puree across the texture, and the cat licks it out of the grooves one lick at a time. That is the whole product. The "Slomo" part is the bowl shape — it holds more liquid than the flat LickiMats, which matters for cats who eat mostly wet food.
The "Cat" part is the size and the texture depth. LickiMat makes mats for dogs too, and the dog mats have deeper grooves meant for bigger tongues. The Slomo Cat is scaled for a cat mouth, which means the grooves are shallow enough that a cat does not get frustrated, and the whole mat is small enough that a cat can reach every corner without getting up.
The whisker-friendly lick mat I used for six weeks
The LickiMat Slomo Cat spreads wet food into a thin layer of shallow grooves so a cat licks her meal slowly instead of gulping it. It also calms anxious cats through the repetitive licking motion.
See the LickiMat Slomo Cat on Amazon →Why whisker-friendly matters
Cats have whiskers that are wider than their heads, and a cat who has to put her face into a deep bowl feels pressure on her whiskers every time she eats. That pressure is uncomfortable — it is called whisker fatigue, and it is the reason a lot of cats pull food out of a bowl and eat it off the floor. The Slomo Cat is flat. The cat eats off the surface with her whiskers free, which is why a cat who refuses a bowl will eat off a mat.
Mabel, the fast eater, would not eat out of a normal bowl without pulling kibble onto the floor first. On the Slomo Cat she eats in place, because there is no bowl edge touching her whiskers. That alone made the mat worth it for me.
What it does for a fast eater
The grooves force the cat to lick the food out one layer at a time. A quarter can of wet food spread across the Slomo Cat takes Mabel four to six minutes to finish. The same amount in a bowl takes her under a minute. That is a real slowdown, and the post-meal barfing that came from eating too fast dropped from twice a week to maybe once a month.
The texture matters. The Slomo Cat has a mix of shallow grooves and a smooth bowl center, so the food spreads unevenly and the cat has to work the grooves. A flat mat with no texture is just a plate — the cat eats it in one lap.
What it does for an anxious cat
This is the part I did not expect. Hazel hides when anything in the house changes. The first time I put the Slomo Cat down for her, I expected her to run. Instead she approached it, smelled the wet food, and started licking — and kept licking for eight minutes, slowly, with her eyes half-closed. She did this every meal for six weeks.
The reason is that licking is a self-soothing behavior in cats. The repetitive motion releases endorphins, which is the same mechanism that makes grooming calming for a cat. A lick mat gives a stressed cat a reason to lick for ten minutes, and the licking calms her down. For Hazel, the mat is now the thing I reach for before a thunderstorm, before a visitor comes over, before the vacuum comes out. It does not fix the anxiety, but it gives her a tool to manage it.
What it does badly
It is messy. Wet food spread on a rubber mat that a cat is licking enthusiastically ends up on the floor, on the cat's chin, and sometimes on the wall. The mat has a small lip around the edge but it does not contain a determined cat. I put the mat on a baking sheet to catch the overflow, which works but is an extra step.
It slides. The silicone grips a clean counter, but on a floor or a towel it slides around, and a cat pushing hard to get the last bits out of the grooves will push the mat across the room. The fix is a textured surface under it, or one of the bowls sold to hold the mat — but the holder is an extra purchase.
The grooves are hard to clean by hand. Wet food packs into the texture and a sponge does not get it all out. The mat is dishwasher safe, which is how I clean it, but if you do not have a dishwasher you will be scrubbing grooves with a brush.
Who it is not for
It is not for a cat who eats kibble only. Dry kibble does not stick to the mat, so it just rolls off. You can soak kibble into a paste, but at that point you are making wet food anyway.
It is not for a cat who needs a real puzzle. The Slomo Cat is a slow feeder, not a problem to solve. A cat who is bored but not anxious and not a fast eater needs something like the Catit Senses Digger, which makes the cat work with her paws. The Slomo Cat asks for nothing but licking.
If your cat needs to work, not just lick
For a bored, healthy cat who needs mental work at mealtime, the Catit Senses 2.0 Digger makes her fish kibble out of tubes with her paws. It is a puzzle, not a slow feeder.
See the Catit Senses Digger on Amazon →How to use it well
Freeze it. Spread the wet food on the mat and put the whole mat in the freezer for an hour before serving. Frozen wet food takes a cat twice as long to lick through, which is the point. The Slomo Cat's bowl shape holds enough liquid to freeze without spilling, which is why it is better for freezing than the flat LickiMats.
Spread thin. A thick layer of food on the mat is gone in two minutes. A thin layer pushed into every groove takes eight. Use the back of a spoon and really work it into the texture.
Introduce it gradually. The first meal, put a little food on the mat and the rest in the normal bowl. Let the cat find the mat on her own. Most cats figure it out in one meal because licking is already a thing they do. If a cat refuses the mat after three meals, she is telling you it is not her thing — try the Digger instead.
Wash it the day you use it. Wet food left in the grooves overnight is a smell you will not get out. Run it through the dishwasher or scrub it right after the meal.
The honest answer after six weeks
The LickiMat Slomo Cat is one of the cheapest things you can buy for a cat and one of the most useful. For Mabel it slowed her eating enough to stop the barfing. For Hazel it gave her a tool to calm herself down. For a cat who needs a puzzle rather than a slow feeder it is the wrong choice, but for a fast eater or an anxious cat it is the right one. Six weeks in, both cats run to the kitchen when they hear me open the drawer where the mats live. That is the review.
