Patent ID: 8316798

Claim:
A system for supplying custom-mixed pet food for mixing, with granular dried food, granular processed nutrients and medication(s) corresponding to the size, health condition, of a pet, comprising: a pet owner's communications terminal, a computer of an animal hospital to which the pet owner has been referred by someone, or an animal hospital to which the pet owner regularly takes his/her pet, a mixing device for mixing said nutrients and medications with food, and a custom-mixed-pet-food prescription control computer system having at least a food-order accepting means, which receives via the Internet from said pet owner's communications terminal a request for supplying custom-mixed pet-food, and which transmits an online order form to said pet owner's communications terminal, a pet-food-order-entry/prescription-request transmission means, which receives said online order form into which order data is entered from the pet owner's communications terminal, records said order data in a database, and transmits a prescription-entry form having a predetermined format and containing a list of nutrients and/or medication(s) to be mixed with food to a computer of a hospital specified in said online order form if the pet owner regularly takes the pet to a particular animal hospital, a pet owner referral/prescription-request transmission means which transmits, if the pet owner does not regularly take the pet to any animal hospital—a letter-of-referral form that refers the pet owner to a hospital selected by the pet owner, with said prescription-entry form having a predetermined format to be completed when the pet owner and his/her pet visit the hospital—to a computer of a hospital selected from a list of animal hospitals on said online order form, and a prescription/mixed-food data-transmission means that (a) reads—when receiving the prescription-entry form having a predetermined format for data entry from said animal hospital that the pet owner regularly visits or to which the pet owner has been referred by said online order form—selection check marks in respective item spaces at predefined positions of the prescription, then (b) records data relating to the kind and weights of the nutrients and/or medication(s) to be mixed with food by converting the data into data value, and then (c) transmits the data value to said mixing device via a LAN line, resulting in the manufacture of the custom-mixed pet food based on the data value.