Our kids called him Mr. Mozart. He was not exactly the poster dog for Labradors: When the dog was 4 months old, my husband threw him in a pond near our house, thinking he would instinctively begin swimming, but he sank like an anchor and has been terrified of water ever since.

In the early days, Mozart would escape out of the backyard through a gate that someone always left open. The neighborhood children and adults would run screaming his name as they chased after him through ...

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