3 Homemade Dog Lick Mat Christmas Treat Ideas
Happy howl-i-days everyone! It’s finally time for some fun and festive homemade dog Christmas treats and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed with myself with these, ha! As you all know, one of my favorite dog enrichment activities are Lickimats for dogs and I love creating the coolest dog lick mat ideas using only a few ingredients!
This time I’ve created 3 homemade dog lick mat Christmas treat ideas that your dogs are going to love! Plus, every single dog lick mat recipe is a 3 ingredient dog treat, can be made in minutes, and two of them are fully customizable! Say what?!
Let’s get holly and jolly and make some fun Christmas dog lick mat recipes!
Christmas Dog Lick Mat Ingredients:
For all of these Christmas dog lick mat treat ideas, you will need the ingredients from the list below. There’s mainly one ingredient that separates two from the three recipes and there are some optional notes included as well!
Main Ingredients:
- Frozen Peas (avoid canned versions because of the salt. I get the steamable bags)
- Strawberries
- 1 Banana
- Plain Greek Yogurt
Optional:
- Dog Safe Peanut Butter (we love Poochie’s Butter!)
- Dog Treats/Food (I’ll share what I used and when in the post!)
Dog Lick Mats + Helpful Tools:
- XL Lickimat Buddy
- Lickimat Soother
- Lickimat Buddy
- Cocktail Muddler (for mashing)
- Piping Bag (or DIY piping bag with plastic bag for yogurt)
Christmas Dog Lick Mat Idea 1: Christmas Tree
The first 3 ingredient homemade Christmas dog treat is the Christmas Tree! For this dog lick mat idea you will need frozen peas, plain Greek yogurt and strawberries. The optional part here is a dog treat for the stem and some dog safe peanut butter for the strawberries. We’ll also be using the Lickimat Buddy for this dog lick mat idea.
Step 1: Grab your cooked peas and mash them in a bowl.
Pro Tip: For all of my dog lick mat recipes, I use a cocktail muddler for mashing everything. It works great!
Step 2: With a knife, start by creating a straight line from the top of your Lickimat Buddy almost all the way to the bottom.
Step 3: Create a horizontal line at the bottom to create the base of the Christmas tree.
Step 4: Create your triangle Christmas tree shape by filling in the sides at an angle.
Step 5 (optional): Create your Christmas tree stem by placing a piece wide dog treat at the bottom.
Note: For my Christmas tree stem, I used the Bundle X Joy Jerky Bars and I used a little bit of Poochie Butter to secure it in place. If you want to skip the treat, you can always create your Christmas tree base out of peanut butter or keep it all green with peas!
Steps 6-7: Customize your tree!
Note: I used the Plain Greek Yogurt in a piping bag to create the tinsel or lights on the tree and then I cut up some strawberry squares and used those as the ornaments. Create your own Christmas tree any way you want using dog safe fruits, vegetables, treats and more! Have fun with it!
Step 8: Freeze for 2-3 hours or overnight and serve to your pup!
Christmas Dog Lick Mat Idea 2: Santa Face
The second Christmas dog lick mat idea was made for my Annie Bananie because this 3 ingredient dog treat is a tasty homemade banana dog treat recipe! For this frozen Lickimat idea, you will need 1 banana, strawberries, plain Greek yogurt and the XL Lickimat Buddy. Some optional pieces are dog food and/or treats.
Step 1: In a bowl, mash your banana and on a cutting board, chop up your strawberries.
Pro Tip: For the strawberries, you can cut them into either big pieces of small pieces. The strawberries make up the Santa hat and the first time I made this I used small squares. Honestly, the more squares, the more work, ha! So if you want to save some time, just cut them into bigger pieces!
Step 2: With your cut up strawberries, begin making an outline of your Santa face and hat. The Santa face will be more of a square and the Santa hat is a curved piece the folds off to the side (see photos below).
Step 3: Once you’ve made your outline with your strawberries, take a spoon and start filling in your outline with your mashed banana. Once you’ve started the shape, you can remove the strawberries and finish making your face and hat out of your mashed banana.
Step 4: Take your strawberries and fill in your Santa hat
Step 5: Fill your piping bag with a few spoonfuls of your plain Greek yogurt (you can always add more as needed!) and begin creating your Santa beard, Santa Hat pom pom (and the white fluff line at the top Santa’s face under the strawberries), eye brows and mustache (see photos below).
Pro Tip: For the beard, I did squeezed my piping bag in a circular shape to get that curly look and I started below the face so I would still have room to put his nose and eyes.
Step 6: With a treat/dog food, create the eyes and nose
Note: For the eyes, I cut up the same Bundle X Joy dog treats featured in the first Christmas dog lick mat idea into small squares. For the nose, I used a piece of dog food.
Step 7: Freeze for 2-3 hours or overnight and serve to your pup!
Christmas Dog Lick Mat Idea 3: Christmas Wreath
The third homemade dog lick mat Christmas treat idea is a Christmas wreath! Now, I was quite impressed with myself for the Santa dog lick mat idea, but this one I was even more impressed and I’ll share why in the steps below, ha!
This Christmas dog treat recipe is also fully customizable and uses the following ingredients and dog lick mats: peas, strawberries, dog safe peanut butter and the Lickimat Soother.
Step 1: In a bowl, mash your peas.
Step 2: Grab your Lickimat Soother and with a knife, begin creating a thick circle out of your mashed peas. Make sure to leave a hole in the middle!
Note: Steps 3-5 Show how to create the strawberry bow. Remember this is fully customizable, so if you want to do something else & skip this step, go for it! This is the part where I was super impressed with myself for creating this, ha! One fun option is Blue Buffalo’s new Christmas shaped dog treats that I saw at Petsmart. One treat on the package looked like Christmas bells which would be so cute here too!
Step 3: Grab a cutting board and two strawberries. Cut off the stem so it’s flat and place the point facing up.
Step 4: Find the middle of the strawberry and create two even cuts on both sides. This creates the middle of the bow and the two sides. See photos below.
Note: For the middle piece, you can cut the length of it in half or else it’ll stick super far out above the rest of the strawberry bow pieces.
Step 5: With a second strawberry, create two long strips to create the ends of the bow (you can cut any length you want!)
Step 6: With some dog safe peanut butter, stick the bow to your Christmas wreath.
Step 7: Customize your wreath with any dog safe fruits and vegetables or dog treats/food.
Note: I used a few pieces of dog food to decorate my wreath to keep it simple but fun!
Step 8: Freeze for 2-3 hours or overnight and serve to your pup!
Out of all of these homemade dog lick mat Christmas treat ideas, which was your favorite? I want to say the Santa dog lick mat idea is my favorite but I’m still so stinking proud of myself for that strawberry bow on the Christmas wreath frozen Lickimat idea, ha! Also, weren’t these dog lick mat recipes super easy? I think many times they look intimidating but they’re really not!
Want to see even more easy dog lick mat recipes? Check out some of my favorite lick mat recipes for dogs, KONG filling ideas and more fun holiday dog treat recipe ideas below:
- CONAIRPROPET GoodBone Dog Treat Maker Review + Dog Pancake Recipe
- Thanksgiving Dog Treat: KONG-ucopia KONG Filling Idea
- Cranberry Applesauce Dog Treats Recipe
- Dog Friendly Cupcake Christmas Wreath Recipe with Dog Safe Icing
- Christmas Dog KONG Stuffing Recipe: Puppermint Bark
- 3 Easy Dog Lick Mat Ideas
- 3 Ingredient Yogurt Dog Treat Recipe With Lickimat Soother (The perfect beginner lickimat recipe)
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Photography: Kate Kelley Collection