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My approximately 11 year old dog is suddenly waking us in the middle of the night wanting to play. We ignore her, and if we put her in another room/place she will scratch for hours--she will not stop. Her back is having problems; she had a disc burst and has several other discs bulging. These problems started before the overnight issue and seem to be much better now (we are currently medicating with gabapentin; I do not like giving drugs for life but the surgeon explained that if we do the surgery there is no guaranty the next disc won't burst in a few weeks/months, and she's getting older so doing surgery after surgery doesn't seem like the answer. Anyway, during this time (prior to the sleep issue) she had trouble getting up curbs, walking, not slippping) she is not experiencing any of that now. Both my fiance and I were working from home, so we were with her and her 3 other doggie siblings all day. Her getting up in the middle of the night started right when my fiance started working away from home. But she doesn't do it when he leaves. She does it in the middle of the night. We video taped her all night and she appears to not be able to find a comfortable spot for hours--every 10 minutes she chooses another spot to sleep. Then after about 3 hours she starts clawing at him (or me, if he's not there) to get up and be with her. She sleeps for hours during the day so it doesn't seem to be pain related (I'm still here with her all day). She doesn't get a ton of exercise, but these past few years she hasn't gotten a ton of exercise. And with her back problems I don't think the answer is to try to physically wear her out. We've had blood tests and nothing came back problematic. I've yet to see any symptoms of the onset of senility--she is as sharp as a tack, knows all her commands, eats well, eliminates well. What the heck? Is there something medical I'm missing? If it's separation anxiety, why does she go crazy in the middle of the night while he's here? And either way, what can we do to fix it? Please help!!!!!