Onix Gloria is a well known cattery created by Tatyana Alekseeva.
When we say “Onix Gloria” we talk here about the work that has been done in the past since after Tatiana left, the cattery was passed to Marina Udimova, (who works lines with nem presence) and group 4 cats are not included on Clean Genealogy work.
We send any breeder who has group 4 cats to the Siberian World group since their goal is to add every year, another generation with no Nem on group 4 cats.
Onix Gloria did a remarkable work of selection regarding type and temperament and but unfortunately there was also some poorer choices like the cat Tiger who was highly inbred and sired several litters. Tiger was also a cp carrier.
Tiger’s genealogy was obviously an attempt to get golden cats quickly, like a shortcut cut, since golden is a complex recessive gene and, therefore, hard to obtain. Tiger’s match is the result of a half-brother/half-sister combination, but his grandmother on his mother’s side is also his great-grandmother on his father’s side, which is a poor combination.
Gelios and Ars are mentioned often when it comes to
HCM but when there is no inbreeding (no Tiger or low Tiger presence) we don’t observe the same HCM pattern, like for example on the Saint Andre lines where all cats were healthy.
Like almost everything in life, there are good points and not-so-good points regarding these older Onix Gloria cats, and our goal in clean genealogy is exactly to throw the “dirty water, but we keep the baby”. The “baby” is the beauty, the temperament and the stability. I also observed these lines have very few esthetical kinks like kinks on the tail, for example, defaults on looks and the same regarding health-related kinks like monorchidism, cleft pallets, hernia, etc. I worked for years with Og cats and never observed any of these problems.
However, even with cats where we will find Tiger behind a couple of times, when we add variety and with consistent HCM testing, the risks are vastly decreased.
Another issue regarding Onix Gloria lines (and lines based on OG roots) is the dominance that was established in the Siberian gene pool since these cats were vastly sold in Europe and the USA. This strong dominance could lead to disaster if we don’t act. One of our goals now is to very slowly bring back balance by using distant lines that are not based on Og cats. You can also consult the page “How to make a match.”
It is essential to avoid high inbreeding in the name of “colour” or in the name of “purity” or falling in the extreme opposite, making inbred matches in order to avoid Tiger Onix Gloria or Gelios, for example, it would be just as bad.
It is true that every breed is built with certain levels of inbreeding but we know nowadays that inbreed made blindly is often at the origin of hereditary diseases spreading.
We can work with more variety and less inbreeding / line breeding, we can test our cats and work in a responsible way.
The future of the breed is in the hands of today’s breeders. Your actions count.