I Put Peanut Butter on My Forehead. This is What Happened Next.

The first time I put peanut butter on my forehead with saran wrap to groom my dog, I told no one. All I needed was to get Ben's nails trimmed but I didn't have an extra set of hands available as I usually do.

Ben is a collie. He is a sensitive soul, attentive, smart and deeply, deeply convinced that nail trims are an existential threat. He's never been aggressive. Just certain that nail trims are a sign that the world is indeed ending. You could see it the moment the clippers came out: the whale eye, the slow-motion floor melt, the sudden urgent need to be somewhere else. Any room but this one. Any activity but this.

What made it harder was this catch-22. Collies need regular grooming to stay comfortable (Ben is a fluffy guy with nails that grow quite quickly). So the thing stressing him out was also the thing I couldn't skip.

I want to be clear that I tried. Everything. High-value treats, desensitization since he was a puppy, I read the guides, I watched the tutorials, I followed vet advice with consistency. And all of it helped, a little. The baseline moved. Just not enough to make nail trims feel like anything other than a negotiation we were both exhausted by.

The core problem was his attention. The moment the clippers appeared, Ben's focus locked onto them and onto me, waiting, scanning, calculating his exit. Treats helped, but only when there was someone else there dishing them out, my own hands were full. I needed something that would hold his gaze above what was happening. Continuously. Without requiring a third (or fourth) hand I didn't always have. What I needed, though I didn't know it yet, was a hands-free dog grooming solution.

I did not have a business idea. I had peanut butter.. on my head.

As with all things viral on the internet, I came across a funny way of keeping your dog distracted while you trim their nails. By wrapping your head in saran wrap and smearing it with peanut butter. I had nothing to lose so why not give it a try? Then I smeared some peanut butter on my forehead.

He went absolutely still.

He lay in front of me and licked my forehead with the kind of focused, joyful attention I only get when someone else is feeding him his favourite treats. I picked up the clippers. I did his nails. All four paws in 5 minutes.

I set the clippers down and stayed there for a moment, genuinely processing what had just happened. The solution was on my face. Literally.

The first version was saran wrap. Peanut butter, spread across my forehead. Functional, but messy. You see, the saran wrap has no grip, so peanut butter was dripping down my face and onto the floor. Moreover, Ben's avid licking required a peanut butter re-spread to keep him engaged.

The second time I gave this a go, I encountered the same problems, peanut butter in places you really don't want peanut butter and re-spreads needed mid-nail trim. That's when I thought to myself, "What if this was a lick mat?" The texture would give him more to engage with, it held the treat longer, and I could swap in different spreadable treats.

Then I started noticing the design problems. The mat shifted. The band slipped. The whole thing needed to be adjustable, easy to clean, and if I was being real with myself, something I could actually hand to another person with a straight face. Because if it worked for Ben and his grooming anxiety, it might work for other anxious dogs too.

So I built something real. A proper prototype. Iterations. Testing. A patent application.

That's Lick n' Clip.

Launching September 2026. 1,000 units. The name is exactly what it sounds like — your dog licks while you clip. Or bathe, or brush, or do whatever dog grooming task used to require more hands than you have when you need to be up close and personal with your pup.

Ben loves getting his nails trimmed now. He sees me strap that lick mat to my head and he is licking his chops and jumping into his nail trim spot, ready and eager for his nail trim treat du jour.

I started this because nail trim desperation made me creative, and creativity made me practical, and practicality eventually made me a founder. A sentence I also didn't see coming.

If your dog has strong opinions about grooming and especially nail trims, we made this for them.

Waitlist is open at licknclip.com.