Dog bowl mat size guide

The mat is measured flat, across the widest point of the oval. Two bowls stand side by side on every size — what grows with the size is the margin round the outside, and the margin is the part that catches what misses the bowl.

That is the whole idea behind the four sizes, and it is why the size is decided by the floor rather than by the dog. A great dane with two small bowls needs less mat than a beagle with two large ones. Measure the run of floor the bowls stand on, then read the size off the table.

Dog bowl mat size guide: four oval sizes from S to XL, measured flat across the oval — Four sizes, all the same oval, all measured flat. The first figure is across the narrow way, the second along the length.

Size	Centimetres	Inches
S	30 × 50 cm	11.8 × 19.7 in
M	35 × 60 cm	13.8 × 23.6 in
L	40 × 70 cm	15.7 × 27.6 in
XL	45 × 80 cm	17.7 × 31.5 in

What size dog bowl mat do I need?

Measure the run of floor where the bowls stand, not the dog. Put a tape along the wall or the skirting and take the length you are willing to give up, then take the largest size that fits inside it. In most kitchens that is the length of the gap between a cupboard and a doorway, and it is a figure you already know by eye — measure it anyway, because an oval that has to be pushed against a wall to fit stops being an oval.

If you are between two, take the larger. The margin is the whole point: a mat the size of the bowls catches nothing. The difference between S and XL is fifteen centimetres across and thirty along, which sounds small on paper and is the difference between wiping the floor and not.

Will two bowls fit on the smallest mat?

Yes. S holds two small bowls or one large one. M and L take two medium bowls with room round them. XL is for two large bowls, or for a dog that pushes the bowl while it eats.

Every size takes two bowls side by side — that is the fixed rule of the range and the reason the sizes step the way they do. What you are buying as you go up is not room for more bowls but margin round the ones you have.

Brown waxed cord dog bowl mat with two bowls standing side by side on it — Two bowls side by side, and the margin round them. This is the brown, which is the thick cord — each coil reads as a separate rope from across the room.

What size bowl mat for a large dog?

The dog does not set the size — the bowls and the floor do — but there is one place the dog comes into it. A dog that shoves the bowl along the floor while it eats will walk it off a small mat, and for that habit XL is the answer whatever the dog weighs. So is a dog that drinks with its whole face in the water.

A quiet eater with two medium bowls is well served by M or L no matter how big the dog is. Take the size from the floor first, then move up one if your dog pushes.

Can the mat go in the washing machine?

Machine washable at 30 degrees, dried flat. Hotter than that and the wax leaves the cord, and the cord is what the wax was for.

Dried flat means laid out, not hung — an oval of cord hung over a line dries into the shape of the line. Day to day it does not need the machine: the wax means most of what lands on it can be wiped off with a cloth, and the wash is for the end of the month rather than the end of the meal.

Does the mat hold a spill?

It catches what is flicked over the rim, which is most of what a mat is asked to do. It lies flat and has no lip, so it will not hold a whole bowl if one goes over — for that you want a tray, not a mat. Read it as a mat that keeps the mess in one place rather than a basin that holds it.

Thick cord and thin cord

Five colourways in two weights of cord, and the two do not share a palette. Sky blue, brown and red are the thick cord, each coil a separate rope from across the room; green and grey are the thin one, packed tight enough to read as cloth until you stand over it. The sizes are identical in both weights — the cord changes how the mat looks, not what it measures.

Grey waxed cord dog bowl mat with two bowls on it, braided in the thin cord — The grey is the thin cord. Same four sizes, same oval, a surface that reads as cloth until you are standing over it.

Can I have a name stitched on it?

No — and this is the one thing here that carries no writing at all. Cord gives a needle nowhere to go. Everything else in the shop is embroidered; the mat is the exception, and rather than print something on it and call it the same thing, it is left plain.

How it is made

An oval of waxed cord, wound round on itself from the middle out and finished at the edge with the cord it started with. I braid them one at a time in Prague, and the wax is what gives the surface its low sheen.

The figures in the table are the sizes I braid to, measured flat across the finished oval. If you need to know whether a particular size clears a particular gap, write to me with the gap before you order.