maximizing growth for lab

Question
hi. i have a 15 week old yellow lab. i feed him dog food (science diet for puppy large breed) and milk three times a day. i can say he's healthy and all but i want to maximize his growth (not overweight but tall). he takes vitamins and calcium. is there anything else i can do? can i add ginseng to his diet? also, is science diet a good premium brand for this kind of breed? and when do i stop giving milk? looking forward for your answers. thanks

Answer
Ricky, I felt an urgency to reply here because some of the things you are doing here are not just bad ideas, they are downright dangerous for your dog. Let me go through this with you one by one.

First, you write that you feed "Science Diet and milk" three times a day, to a fifteen week old Lab.
Science Diet is a poor quality food in terms of ingredients, but it does contain approriate nutrient levels for a growing dog. Hence, two problems arise; first, I would suggest using a premium quality food such as Innova Large Breed Puppy, and second, the levels of calcium you're including here are way too much for a pup. In cases of large breeds, excess dietary calcium can lead to serious deformities:

http://us.iams.com/iams/en_US/jsp/IAMS_Page.jsp?pageID=A&articleID=231

http://www.newmanveterinary.com/large.html

In the case of a large or giant breed pup, the biggest problem is overnutrition. Adding vitamins and calcium and Mmilk to a diet already formulated to supply his needs is a recipe for total disaster.
Please take the puppy off this regime and put him on a premium food, and feed according to his eight and age needs, NOT to try and "maximize growth". I have seen people actually lose their dog due to skeletal defomrity acquired this way - or at least have a dog afflicted with HD all his life.

Adding ginseng is useless, and as stated above, it's important to control the growth rate, not maximize it.

I cannot stress enough that this is a dangerous regimen this boy is on and I encourage you to get him on something appropriate NOW.
Catherine