She’s an award-winning actor — a first-time Oscar nominee at age 72. For years she served as the face of Lancôme cosmetics. Yet it is her work as a farmer and trainer of guide dogs, facilitated by her master’s in Animal Conservation from Hunter College, that got Isabella Rossellini a recent academic speaking gig in New York City.
Rossellini was a special guest of Barnard College’s Dog Cognition Lab on February 12 for a conversation on “Living with, Studying, and Working with Dogs and Other Animals,” where she discussed the myriad of animal care jobs she has taken on since she earned her degree in 2019 — including what it takes to train a guide dog.
"You do not throw balls at them, she said. “They must learn to be ‘undoggy.’’’
The hour-and-a-half conversation, hosted by Alexandra Horowitz, the head of Barnard’s Dog Cognition Lab, began with a showing of the 2018 short film, Wolf Becomes Dog, which Rossellini produced for her master’s thesis, Link, Link, Circus.
Rossellini expresses wonder when she talks about animals, and noted that there is no doubt in her mind that dogs are emotional beings.
“I always had a dog, and I felt they have emotions," she said. “But I was told, ‘No, Isabella, it’s a dog; it’s instinct.’ But they do have emotion; It is absurd to think they do not. You cannot manage life if you don’t have emotion.”
Rossellini’s love of animals, acting, producing films, and even costume design came together at Hunter, when she was inspired to make a series of educational shorts for the Sundance Channel. She stars in them, wearing quirky costumes of her own design.
In Mammas: Hamster, also shown the night of Rosellini’s talk, she appears in a hamster costume.
“It’s me who decides how many babies I can raise,” she declares before contorting herself and popping out a litter of 10 hamster pups. Explaining how a mama hamster would have to divvy up resources, Rossellini, as the hamster, then snacks on the two smallest.
“If I were a hamster, I would not be in prison,” she says, now wearing prison stripes behind bars. “I am not a monster, but a good administrator of my strength and resources.”
In another film, Seduce Me, Rossellini explains the mating habits of several species, such as the fly, in costumes — a trick she says helps viewers understand the science behind the series.
“The hardest part of making these films is to translate science into something entertaining but well-informed and then make it funny,” she said.
Rossellini said she came to study at Hunter because animals, especially dogs, had fascinated her since childhood.
She attended a lecture at Hunter by animal conservationist Temple Grandin and saw brochures for Hunter’s program.
“I signed up right there and then!” she said. “I wanted to understand their personalities. It was an opportunity to have a close relationship with animals. The bond we feel with dogs is special.”
