Aldaron Essences’ online store closed permanently on May 31, 2023. I no longer sell flower essence formulas directly to customers.
Instead, I’ll be focusing on developing the Aldaron Essences blog into a premier resource on flower essences for dogs and other animals. I’ll also be expanding my dog training website, Train2Behave.com, as well as my Etsy store of mostly dog training- and breed-related apparel and gifts.
Look for lots of new articles and content over the coming weeks!
Best,
julie
About Aldaron Essences
Aldaron Essences officially launched in January of 2009. Our business is all about helping dogs live happier, more grounded and balanced lives, with the help of our “canine behavior support” flower essence formulas.
Aldaron Essences’ natural formulas gently restore balance to extreme and out-of-balance emotions that can contribute to problem behavior in dogs. All our formulas are original blends, each conceived, developed, and hand-blended by long-time professional dog trainer and canine behavior specialist Julie Cantrell, using traditional English (Bach) and North American flower remedies. Julie’s three decades of dog training and behavior experience is reflected in Aldaron’s uniquely effective flower remedy formulations.
Our Philosophy
Our commitment is to provide helpful, “do no harm” products and sound, solid, practical dog training tips and behavior advice.
Our customer service approach is very simple: to treat others as we would wish to be treated, as a fellow human being with inherent dignity and value, not as a potential sale or monetary asset.
Our Mission
Produce quality flower essence formulas for a wide variety of animal behavior issues.
Promote greater awareness of the utility of flower essences in positively effecting training and behavior outcomes when working with emotion-influenced behaviors.
Correct misconceptions about flower essences and their use in dog training and behavior work.
Provide sincere, respectful information, guidance and encouragement to dog owners and professionals seeking healthy ways to restore or enhance harmony between dogs and their families.
Why Pre-Mixed Flower Essence Blends?
You will sometimes read that pre-mixed flower essence blends should be avoided, since they can’t take into account the individual nature of emotions. And in fact, I don’t completely disagree with this statement. It is, in fact, one reason I didn’t offer pre-mixed formulas earlier.
Years ago, as I was just playing with the idea of starting a flower essence formula company that would offer a variety of pre-mixed blends, a number of things came to mind:
As I revisited years of my own flower essence formula notes, it became apparent that certain basic blends came up repeatedly for different dogs, in different situations, that exhibited similar behaviors and attitudes. This drove home the idea that common dog behavior issues frequently have a core group of emotions that drive them.
Interpreting the motivations behind dog behavior isn’t always easy or obvious. Too often we project our own emotions onto their dogs and end up muddying the waters as a result. Or we anthropomorphize dog behavior. No matter how tempting, it’s rarely helpful in understanding what truly motivates problem dog behavior.
While flower essences are very safe to experiment with, it can be time-consuming and expensive to go through trial-and-error experiments, especially for anyone who doesn’t have a clear sense of which emotions motivate problem behaviors in dogs. Having a knowledgeable third party to interpret the emotions behind a dog behavior problem can make all the difference.
Most dog trainers are far too busy to invest time and energy studying the great variety of flower essences and how to formulate them effectively. So, they rarely go beyond the occasional recommendation of Rescue Remedy for car sickness or separation anxiety.
On the other hand, I had confidence in not only the ability of Bach flower essences to re-tune out-of-balance emotions, but in my own ability to “read” dogs and discern the “why” behind problem behaviors. In addition to my years of dog training experience, I’d spent quite a few years practicing and experimenting using Bach flowers not only on myself and my own dogs, but clients’ dogs, friends’ dogs, and friends of friends’ dogs!
So, I began to see that there was an opening – even a need – for Bach flower essence blends, created from the perspective of a dog trainer and behavior specialist (i.e. someone skilled in interpreting the emotional side of dog behavior problems). Besides having some natural talent in that area, my degree in zoology, my background in animal behavior, and decades of experience working with dog behavior problems as a dog trainer (with and without the help of flower essences), seemed to be tailor-made for the job. Over the years, I’ve worked with a huge array of dog behavior issues, both with and without the help of flower essences, and have been able to see what is helpful and what isn’t.
All things considered, in the end it seemed worthwhile to create a line of Canine Behavior Support Formulas to help take some guesswork out of selecting flower essences for dogs. And so Aldaron Essences was born. Since then our line of pre-mixed blends has grown in popularity and reputation. They are now used and recommended by dog training and behavior professionals across the US and beyond.