About

Made by people who are obsessed with sniffing

Sniffgrove is a small US team with one job: build the snuffle mat we wish we could have bought for our own dogs.

Sniffgrove is a small United States team focused on canine enrichment. We make one thing, a machine-washable 19.2-inch fleece snuffle mat, and we try to get every detail right rather than stocking a wall of half-considered options. Our aim is simple: help dogs use their noses and settle their minds.

Most dog products are sold on how they look on a shelf. Snuffle mats are different, because a dog does not care about the shelf. It cares about whether the fleece actually hides the food, whether the mat stays put when it shoves its nose in, and whether the game lasts more than thirty seconds. We started Sniffgrove because so many mats look the part and then fail on exactly those points. We wanted to fix that with one product, done properly.

Flat lay of four dog enrichment items on a wood floor: the Sunny snuffle mat, a rope toy, a chew bone and a plain slow-feeder bowl

Why one mat, not a catalog

It would be easier, commercially, to list twenty variations and let you sort it out. We chose the opposite. A single mat means we can obsess over the things that decide whether your dog loves it: a genuinely wide search surface, dense shaker fleece with deep strips, a base that grips the floor, and fabric that survives a real machine wash. When you only sell one mat, you cannot hide a weak product behind ten others. That focus keeps us honest, and it keeps the mat good.

Everything we recommend flows from that. Our buyer's guide lays out the exact criteria we used, and we hold our own mat to the same checklist in public. If a rigid plastic puzzle or a rubber lick mat would suit your dog better for a particular job, we say so, because sending you the wrong product helps nobody.

It also changes how we spend our time. Instead of chasing the next product to add to a range, we keep improving the one mat and the guidance around it. That is why so much of this site is free advice on how to introduce nose work, how long a session should be and how to keep it safe, rather than a wall of things to buy. The guidance is here so the mat works from the first session, not just from the first order.

Meet Erin Walsh

Erin Walsh

Canine enrichment trainer

Erin Walsh is a canine enrichment trainer who has spent the better part of a decade helping fast eaters, anxious rescues and under-stimulated puppies through scent work and force-free training. She has road-tested dozens of foraging toys, and she is the one who picked this mat for us out of the ones she tried.

Erin shapes the way we think about the mat and the way we write about it. Her rule is that enrichment should be easy to get right at home, which is why our guides push short, supervised sessions with a dog's normal food rather than complicated routines. She wrote our puppy guide and helped define how we test every mat before it ships. Her background is in force-free training and scent work, and she has watched enough dogs learn to forage to know which small details make the difference between a mat that gets used daily and one that ends up in a drawer.

Two hands holding a tape measure across the Earth snuffle mat to show its width point to point

Why this specific mat

The design is not accidental. The 19.2 by 19.2 inch (48 by 48 cm) surface is big enough to spread food across several zones so the search lasts, and small enough to fold up and throw in the wash. The central fleece flower and the branch and corner elements give a range of hiding spots, so you can make the game easier for a beginner or harder for a pro. The fleece is dense on purpose, because density is what actually hides the kibble. And the base is built to grip, so an enthusiastic dog can lean in instead of chasing the mat across the kitchen.

The three colorways, Sunny, Ocean and Earth, each pair a soft base tone with a bright fleece flower, so there is an option to suit your room while the colors stay fun and easy for a dog to work. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of detail we think about, because the mat lives in your space, not just your dog's.

Sniffgrove snuffle mat in its three colorways, Sunny yellow, Ocean blue and Earth brown, side by side

Macro close-up of the dense fleece petals, showing how deep the folds are and how kibble disappears between the layers

How we work

Every review on this site comes from a verified buyer of this mat, photos included. The most important one is simple: a snuffle mat is a supervised game, not an unattended chew toy. We say that on every relevant page rather than burying it, because a product you trust is worth more than a product that oversells. The photos on our reviews page come from verified buyers.

Behind the product, we back every order with free shipping and a 30-day money-back guarantee, so the risk of trying nose work sits with us and not with you. If the mat is not right for your dog, tell us and we will make it right. You can read the details on our refund policy, and if you just want ideas to get started, our dog enrichment ideas and the plain explainer on what a snuffle mat is are good places to begin.

See the snuffle mat → See how we test →

Questions? Reach us any time on our contact page.