Sleeping Patterns

Question
I have an older female dog (she's 15. She's a mixed breed, doberman and german shepard. Her overall helath is fine,except for what appears to be a growing incontenince which we are treating iwth a diaper in addition to more frequent trips outside.

Sydney used to sleep well through the night but recently she began waking up 1, and 2 hours early, even 4 hours early on the weekends as we sleep in.   

We started to get up with her to let her out but that didn't seem to do it.  We'd go back to bed, leaving her outside our bedroom (where she sleeps) and she just bark and bark until someone came out kept her company.

We can't and don't want to keep this up.  Not sure what we can do to get back to bed and to sleep at this point once she wakes up in the morning.  We'd love to get her to go back to sleep.  She seems to just want company.

Any thoughts?


Answer
What if you allow her access to your bedroom, Karen? What if you crated her at night? It almost sounds as if she is developing dementia. Sometimes, older dogs will begin doing strange things out of the blue, that really don't make any sense to us. Some dogs will wander aimlessly around the house, over and over, almost as if they are sleepwalking. Others will stand in one spot and bark, as if they are barking at something, but nothing is there. If allowing her to come into your bedroom doesn't help, you might want to talk to the vet about it, and see if s/he has any suggestions. You might could put her on some type of medication that would help.