I have a 5 month Labrador/ Greyhound cross, occasionally she has a mad 10 minutes where she'll run around the house or garden and then calm herself down.

I'm concerned because she also will have mad moments where something (noise/ other dog/ other human) will set her off and she'll spin round and round, or if she's on a walk she run round and round me in tight circles at stupid speeds ignoring anything we do or say. I'm concerned because they seem much more manic than her usual mad 10 mins and when she spins around in the house she can knock her head on the wall and not notice. She doesn't respond to anything and my other half has taken to grabbing her and holding her on her mat until she calms down to stop her from hurting herself.

Is this normal puppy activity? She does have a lot of energy and she has been through many homes before she came to us.

My brother's dog does this too. She'll get spooked by something (or sometimes for no apparent reason) and start running from one end of the house to the other. I've always thought she was just trying to expel some excess energy.

Perhaps she associates it with getting attention from your OH? Unless that's a fairly recent thing. My guess is that it's probably the right thing to do if she hits her head, the poor thing

I wouldn't worry too much about it though, I think it might be a greyhound thing as my bro's dog is something crossed with a greyhound

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Nearly all puppies do this especially the working and gundog type breeds. In fact I've had them that still have a mad five minutes at 13 yrs old.

As you say, the danger is that they will bash into something, but providing they are in a relatively safe environment, I just let them get on with it.

Sounds normal to me...the puppy I have (and others I've had previously) do this crazy racing around thing a couple of times a day, she belts around the house from room to room as fast as she can and basically going beserk for a few minutes, nothing I say or do will stop her, she just tires herself out and calms down eventually.

The kids and I just stand clear and let her get on with it

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Mummy to : Leila, Sophie and also Nikita the Siberian Husky.

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thank for the reassurance everyone but is this something she will eventually grow out of or should I cover the walls in padding?

Completely normal. Terence does this, too. My 15-month old son thinks it is the funniest thing he's ever seen when Terence chases his tail for 10 minutes.

I stopped mine from tail chasing when he was a younger pup; did read that it becomes an obsessive behaviour, so I gave him an alternative distraction instead as soon as he looked at it with intent

Oh Cookie does a mad dash around the house aswell, but she forgets she's big and jumps on whoever happens to be sitting on the sofa or chair in her mad rush!

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Arnie ♥ - 1996-2011 - Love you always my boy.

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My dog does this, she will want to go out in the garden and she will just run as fast as she can round and round, so far she has never crashed into anything, not sure how when she is going so fast I bumped into some friends and they said their dog does this too, they call it the 'wall of death'

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Dizzy, rescued 20 March 2011. The best thing I ever did

I guess I was just a bit concerned about the 'extra crazy' moments, she's not running around or chasing her tail, she mainly just spins around. She has hurt herself before on her mad moments, luckily it was nothing too serious.

Does anyone have any ways of stopping them? I've tried distracting her with noises, lights, even splashing her with water but it's like all of her brain has switched off.