one of my pups from last years litter has been diagnosed with epi. this pup is from my 5th generation and there's been no problems before, the mum is very fit never been to vets except for vaccinations and health screening , my concern now is do i cut my line because of this , i am gutted this as happened , all the other pups are fine no problems at all , the mum is the only girl i have to keep my line going i just do not know what to do,

Is epi a known hereditary problem with known mode of inheritance.  Is there a screening test?

If not then I would be looking at the sires side to see if there have been any cases there.

If nothing comes up I would then plan to breed the bitch away from that line and possible not go close to maternal line either.

If we removed every good animal from our gene pools on vague maybe's then nothing would ever be bred from, it's a risk assessment as we can never know what the outcome is going to be.

All living things carry some negative genes, many of which need a corresponding partner(recessive traits) and others that are cumulative, enough rubbish passed on and various health/fertility etc issues occur (inbreeding depression).

I am speaking generally here as I have no idea what epi is, or how serious a health/welfare issue for affected dogs, those are huge considerations when weighing up the risks.

right Google is my freind: Scholarlyuarticles - http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=Canine+Exocrine+Pancreatic+Insufficiency+(EPI)&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

Sorry about the pup. I know it doesn't answer your question but I know there's plenty of advice on the condition itself on here.  Maybe it might be of help to the owners.

I wouldn't make any snap decisions about your line if it was me. I'd want to find out all I could about the incidence in the breed and what the current thinking is about inheritance. With some conditions the advice is just not to repeat that mating.

EPI in my breed (GSD) is inherited via an autosomal recessive, so therefore both parents would be carriers. If the mother is a carrier, this would mean that 50% of her offspring would be carriers. I am not sure if the mode of inheritance is the same in other breeds?
Unfortunately, there is no DNA test available at the moment to test carriers (to my knowledge), although you could perhaps do a TLI test to make sure the mother is definitely unaffected and not sub clinical.

This is an article which has always captured my feelings on epilepsy;

http://www.ashgi.org/articles/epilepsy_road_hell.htm

Only 15 or so years ago - it was very uncommon to hear of people owning my breed to have a dog with epilepsy. The incidence now is alarming :( Many people I know have lost dogs under 2 years of age with epilepsy which has not been controlled with medication. Many others, including myself, have dogs who are fairly well controlled with medication. Perhaps my viewpoint conflicts with others but this may be as a result of owning a dog who experiences tonic/clonic seizures. It is the most horrific event to witness and an emotionally draining illness to live with. However, my view is that not enough is understood about mode of inheritance to selectively breed a given line. I agree with the sentiments of the above article in terms of future breeding.

Are we talking about Epilepsy or Endocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency?

I took it to be EPI not epilepsy....

yes its epi not epilepsy, i contacted epi research , and this is their reply
thank you for writing me..... no, not yet... but we are working on this very thing.  Drs. Leigh Anne Clark and Kate Tsai at CLemson University  http://www.clemsoncaninegenetics.com/ are doing genetic Research on EPI to see if we can identify the genetic markers (they now think there are multiple markers with this) and once this is done, then they can test for carriers.

BUT... just so that you know..... even though they think that EPI is mostly inherited ... it is much more complicated, environmental factors may be involved too  and not so easy to for a breeder to know that it "might" be in the lines until after the breeding is done and a pup tests positive with it.

WHat the researchers are now saying (until we find otherwise) is to not breed those two parents to each other again .. but okay to breed to other mates... Also the pup that has EPI, do not breed that pup.  Other than that...there is not much else we can realistically do until more is known.

I have a Spanish Water Dog with EPI... and SWDs are a very VERY small breed line.... I tracked the pedigree of all 11 dogs that developed EPI and what we noticed is that yes, it appears to run in family lines.... BUT.... we have also noticed that it often skips 3-5 generations in the SWD. 

Anyway....i am attaching a link for you to my website NEWS section- -check out the latest (2010) 10 year study on EPI and heredity from Dr. Westermarck....it is very interesting.
http://www.epi4dogs.com/news.htm

Brief Communication - J Vet Intern Med 2010;24:450-452
Heritability of Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency in
German Shepherd Dogs
E. Westermarck, S.A.M. Saari, and M.E. Wiberg

>BUT... just so that you know..... even though they think that EPI is mostly inherited ... it is much more complicated, environmental factors may be involved too 

That's really interesting, thanks for the links. I think there are various conditions that are polygenic and not proving easy to find genetic markers for. As breeders the best we can do is be as informed as possible.

> WHat the researchers are now saying (until we find otherwise) is to not breed those two parents to each other again .. but okay to breed to other mates...

That's what I thought and is the advice to that given in other polygenic conditions. I guess if one is too ruthless in not using lines, then we could lose sight of the big picture and end up doing more harm than good. (Of course that can partly depend on the popularity of the breed and the size of the gene pool within it).