Humans have been forced to temporarily interact with their dogs or cats – perhaps both – after PetNet’s internet-controlled smart feeder system suffered a blackout.

For $149, the company provides a web-enabled dog/cat feeder that is pre-programmed to dispense food stuffs at certain time and portion sizes.

But PetNet warned customers earlier today that all was not well in its virtual animal kingdom as it was “experiencing some minor difficulties with a third party server. This is being investigated.”

A less brief version was emailed to customers and one posted it on Twitter.

“You may experience a loss of scheduled feeds and failed remote feedings. Please ensure that your pets have been fed manually until we have resolved this issue.

“We’ll continue to update you with our progress on resolving this issue,” it added.

spend $150 on a fancy pet feeder that doesn’t feed your cat when their servers are offline what a great design pic.twitter.com/ZXMiGuWNFE — Alan (@alanzeino) July 27, 2016

Likewise, El Reg will let you know when normal service is resumed and these net savvy pet owners can return to ignoring their companion animals in all situations apart from taking photos of them for social media.

What. A. Time. To. Be. Alive. ®