An Australian invention claiming to solve anxiety for pets left home alone has sold 160,000 in one month as pet owners- including royalty rush to stores to buy them.
Owners fill the squares in the plastic mat with foods like peanut butter and the dog will spend between 20 and 90 minutes licking the food out, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.
Any time the dog spends trying to eat the food isn't spent worrying and it helps the dog eat slower, rather than shovelling down biscuits in a matter of seconds.
It costs around AU$8.95 (NZ$9.58) for a mat and according to owners Joe and Hazel Clarke the Queen's son Prince Andrew the Duke of York has bought some for his dogs.
"We met him when he was here at Bond University. He said the Royal family loves our products, but they can't endorse it as such," Mr Clarke told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Social media has responded well to the product and searching #lickimat on Instagram results in hundreds of pictures of dogs with their mats.
The mat is most popular in the UK, USA and Europe, but Mr Clarke said he's having trouble getting it off the ground in Australia.
"We cannot get any of the major retailers in Australia to pick this up," he said. "We talked to Petbarn and they were unconvinced."
It is big on Amazon though, the Clarkes received an order for 24000 recently and the website is predicting huge amounts of sales.
Newshub.
