If you have a question you'd like answered, please email me at juliec@aldaronessences.com. I'll be happy to answer your question, and if I feel the question is of general interest, I'll post the question and answer on this page!

If you are looking for general introductory information on flower essences, I suggest you start by reading my article Why Flower Essences?. This article discusses types of dog behavior issues such as fears, phobias, jealousy, over-intensity, etc. that can be helped with the aid of flower essences, and how they can help your training and socialization progress more smoothly, not to mention making day to day life just plain easier!

Frequently Asked Questions:

What makes Aldaron Animal Essences different from other flower essence remedies for pets?

What, if any, is the difference between your product vs. Rescue Remedy?

Are your formulas for dogs only?

How long will my dog need to continue taking the formula?

Does my dog's formula only work while I am actively giving it to her?

My dog goes ballistic when he sees other dogs. Which formula do you recommend for that?

Aren't these things all in your head, i.e. the "placebo effect"?

Are flower essences a kind of aromatherapy?

Q: What makes Aldaron Animal Essences different from other flower essence remedies for pets?

A: Thanks for that very good question! There are other lines of flower essences available for pets, and I am positive there are some really wonderful ones out there. So, why introduce one more line of formulas? This was a serious question for me when I was deciding whether to bring Aldaron Animal Essences remedies to the general public, rather than simply continue to offer them only to my training clients. I am not only a lifelong dog owner and dog lover, I am a dog trainer and canine behavior consultant with over 19 years experience working with thousands of dogs - all ages, virtually every breed, and the whole range of dog behavior problems. For over 15 of those years I have incorporated flower essence therapy into that behavior work. I have always been fascinated with the "whys" in life -- and in training dogs, this drive to discover the dog's motivation behind the problem has served me very well in truly helping dogs, not just offering band-aid fixes to behavior problems. I also count myself blessed in having had a depth of intensive experience working with dogs one-on-one, in addition to teaching and coaching dog owners. Learning to adapt myself to many different canine personalities each day, learning how to bring out the best in each, and the continuous opportunity to practice and apply insight and empathy, has given me, I believe, unique insights into why dogs behave the way they do, and what their motivations are. This ability to empathize, glean underlying emotions and motivations, while keeping the big picture in view is, I feel, what makes Aldaron Animal Essences unique and particularly successful in supporting behavioral wellness in dogs.

Q: Hi Julie! I am wondering what, if any, is the difference between your product vs. Rescue Remedy.  I use Rescue Remedy all the time with very good results. Thanks for any info you can provide.

A: Thanks for the question! Rescue Remedy is one combination of 5 essences. That particular combination is great stuff - simply wonderful for trauma, either emotional or physical, new or buried. The formulas on my Aldaron Animal Essences site are simply other combinations of Bach flowers. Some (two, I believe) actually have Rescue Remedy as one of the essences. (When combining essences into formulas, Rescue can be considered to act as a single essence.) So, my formulas address issues that go beyond the scope of Rescue Remedy, i.e. trauma. If you look at my formula line, there are combinations there that address many different emotional “pictures”, most of which I have come across pretty commonly over the years, both as a trainer/consultant and a dog owner, breeder, and competitor.

For instance, if you look at my Fear and Suspicion formula. It has:

• Rescue Remedy for severe stress and trauma, either what the dog is going through now, or went through in the past.
• Aspen for vague, unspecific fears and general anxiety.
• Mimulus for specific, known (to the animal), “hard” fears.
• Elm for the sense of being overwhelmed.
• Holly for many negative feelings “from the heart”, such as envy, hatred, jealousy, and other hurtful, aggressive feelings.

You can see if you look at that formula, that it forms a “picture” of a certain type of dog (or person, they are really not dog-specific!). I originally created this formula for a small terrier who had been severely abused. He was incredibly defensive (as you might expect), willing and ready to bite, no trust whatsoever, all with good reason. No one could touch him. The poor thing was, frankly, so damaged I think most people would have put him down. After about a week of work with no progress, I made up this formula, put it in his water bowl, and simply several feet away from him. He cautiously tested the water, drank a little, and walked away. He then kept going back and back to it till he had nearly drunk the bowl dry. After 5 or 10 minutes, he came over, crawled into my lap, put his head down, and fell asleep. Up till then he had been untouchable, would go near no one, and his entire behavioral repetoire was one continuous defensive threat. The change that day - the door it opened - was truly amazing, and the beginning of his recovery. I admit that this is an unusually dramatic example; most often it takes longer, and the results are more subtle. But I have seen similar things repeatedly over the years.  That particular formula, I realized when going back through my notes, I kept making up again and again, for dogs (not necessarily absued) with defensive, fear aggression.

So, back to your question, the formulas go further than you can with just Rescue Remedy. I don’t think anyone will ever replace Rescue! But, for me, Rescue Remedy was really just an introduction to the whole “world” of flower essences. I realized at some point that most trainers, etc aren’t able to invest the time and energy in studying all the essences and how to formulate them effectively. That’s when I decided to offer Aldaron Animal Essences as a line of behavior support formulas.

If that doesn’t answer your question, please let me know! And thanks again for your email.

Q: Are your formulas for dogs only?

A: Good question! The answer is a resounding "No!" :-). Any type of animal can benefit from these formulas. I promote them for dogs, because dogs are my area of expertise - not only training dogs, but understanding and addressing the underlying emotions and motivations behind the behaviors that dogs can exhibit. While I do consider myself a student of animal behavior in general, I am not an expert on other species! However, Aldaron Animal Essences are safe for any animal. If you feel the description of the emotions for a formula fits what your cat, horse, rabbit, or other best friend is going through, by all means try it. And I would love to hear your feedback!

Q: How long will my dog need to continue taking the formula?

A: You should give the formula, on the recommended schedule, a minimum of 2 weeks to see if there will be any noticeable effect. Keep in mind that it sometimes takes longer. If you are seeing results (improved behavior and responses), continue the formula on a minimum 3 dose per day for at least a month. As your dog's new, more positive behaviors become the norm, you can either decide to reduce the frequency of the formula (going to once a day, or even a few days a week), or if you are like me, you will find that you end up "forgetting" to keep up with the doses as the dog's behavior improves. I think most people tend to notice negative behaviors more than positive ones, and in my case anyway, the negative behaviors tend to "remind" me to keep giving the formula. When they go away, being replaced by positive responses, I just don't think about giving the formula as often. I've found this to be a very natural way to wean off a flower essence formula!

If at any point, your dog begins to shift back into imbalance, showing the old, negative behaviors again, simply start up the regular doses again until you see an improvement, and continue on a few days or weeks before reducing or eliminating giving the formula. Some dogs will bounce back and forth, improving while they are on the formula, and gradually slipping out of balance again when they go off it. This is often simply long-term habit coming back to haunt you! If that is the case, you will find that you have to return to the formula with less and less frequency as time goes on. However, keep in mind that it is also normal for any individual (dog, humans, or any animals) to fall into predictable patterns of imbalance when stressed. So, if the dog repeatedly falls back into imbalance after finishing a course of flower essence therapy, it is advisable to revisit whether the dog has some outside stressor that is causing him to keep returning to the negative behavior patterns. This could be a health issue that is undermining the dog's ability to cope, a training method or approach that is in conflict with the dog's temperament or learning style, a nutritional imbalance, a lack of mental or physical exercise, etc, etc. If you can identify and remove or reduce the stressor, your dog will be much more likely to achieve long-term improvement from flower essences (or any other treatment, training, or therapy!).

Q: Does my dog's formula only work while I am actively giving it to her?

A: Flower essences can produce lasting or permanent "re-tuning" of emotional states. So, the adjustment your dog experienced say, a few months ago, should continue to be effective for some time after you stop giving it. How long is very much dependent on the individual dog and circumstances. Your dog can, for a number of reasons (health, stress, training methods, etc) get back out of emotional balance, and need another round of flower essences to reinforce her positive behavior. See the question "How long will my dog need to continue taking the formula?" for a further discussion of this.

Q: My dog goes ballistic when he sees other dogs. Which formula do you recommend for that?

A: This is a great question, because it goes to the heart of how flower essences work. When you say your dog "goes ballistic", you are describing a behavior, or set of behaviors, not the emotions behind the behavior. That is, you are describing the "what", not the "why". With flower essences, we are primarly concerned with the underlying emotion (the "why") that is leading to the behavior problem. (To put it another way, the problem behavior is a behavioral manifestation of these emotions). To determine what combination of flower essences might help, we need to look at what is motivating the dog to "go ballistic". Is he possibly over-attached to you, and guarding you possessively from other dogs, as he might a favorite toy or a bone? Is he fearful of what might happen if the dogs get too close? Has he had a previous bad experience, possibly being bullied or attacked in the past, that is causing a "best defense is a good offense" approach? Or maybe his excitement to go see other dogs is simply a result of a frustrated desire to play, so that this frustration has developed into an explosive visual display? These are only a few possibilities for why your dog may be behaving the way he is when he sees other dogs.

My recommendation is that you read closely the descriptions for each formula, and see if any closely match what you feel are your dog's underlying emotions when he is in this agitated state. If you are unsure, or if none quite seem to match your dog's perspective, consider having a consult, so that I can evaluate your dog and make a custom flower essence formula that is right for him.

Q: Aren't these things all in your head, i.e. the "placebo effect"?

A: I always love this question, because it is precisely the effects I have observed in animals that convinced me that flower essences do, in fact, work. While people certainly can have an "I want to believe" mindset that can affect how well they perceive a given therapy is working, animals have no such preconceived notions, expectations, or biases. I have seen flower essences work dramatically in homes where the owners had no previous experience with alternative therapies, and no expectation of any particular effect. I have seen amazing results in dogs kenneled at a boarding facility, with no family members or acquaintances present to influence the dog's behavior. I have seen flower essences work on pets owned by people who actually had negative expectations, in which case, if the owners were somehow influencing their animals emotionally, I would have expected to see either a neutral or even a negative result. And, I have seen cases where the dog's owners, possibly too close to the dog to notice the changes in behavior, only recognised the improvement when friends (or competitors, in the case of some show dogs) asked what in the world they had done to bring about such a change in their dog!

So, while I cannot explain fully how flower essences work on emotions, I have seen enough evidence to convince me that, at least in animals, there is no placebo effect at play. Thanks for your question!

Q: Are flower essences a kind of aromatherapy?

A: This is a common question (and misconception) because, superficially, flower essences and aromatherapy do appear quite similar. They both involve flowers, and both involve feelings and emotional states. The similarity, however, ends there. Aromatherapy employs the scent (aroma) of essential oils of various flowers to alter mood through brain chemistry. It is believed to do this via its action on the limbic system of the brain. Flower essences, on the other hand, effect and alter not mood per se, but emotional states and perception. Further, they contain no discernible scent. Instead of concentrated essential oils, flower essences are prepared from pure water in which selected flowers have been infused. While no noticeable scent remains, what is preserved is the "energy signature" of that particular bloom. It is this subtle vibrational pattern, not overt scent, that holds the therapeutic value of flower essences. This vibrational pattern acts as a kind of "tuning fork" for out of balance emotions. By providing the body with plant world's version of the correct (healthy, balanced) vibrational pattern of a particular emotion, the body is able to gently readjust back into a healthy emotional state.