Is grain-free dog food safe for dogs in New Zealand?

Short version: there's no evidence that grain-free food is unsafe for a healthy dog, and there's never been a New Zealand investigation into it. The worry traces back to the US Food and Drug Administration, which in 2018 began looking into reports of dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs eating foods that were often grain-free. By late 2022 the FDA said it hadn't found a definitive link, described the picture as complex and not explained by any single ingredient, and stopped issuing regular updates.

That's not a formal all-clear, and we won't pretend it is. But four years of looking, plus follow-up work from several universities, didn't produce the clear cause the headlines suggested was already sitting there.

The more useful thing that came out of it all is that grain was probably never the issue. Kibble needs a starch to hold together, so pulling grain out means putting something else in. In a lot of recipes that something was peas, pea protein and lentils in large amounts, which lifts the protein number on the label without much meat behind it.

So when you're comparing bags, look at whether named animal protein leads the recipe rather than whether the word 'grain' appears. And if your dog has a diagnosed heart condition or is a breed with known heart risk, take the diet question to your vet.