Powerful Power

The last few weeks, Power has again been pulling the "wake Mom up every 10 minutes"  business at night!

When he did something similar in New Mexico, I finally decided he must have been cold ( temps were in the 20's every night), so I bought the flannel jammies for the dogs.  It seemed to do the trick.

After getting to Quartzsite, he was fine at night for a few weeks, but then started in doing the same thing.  He would wait till I turned off my reading light, and in the very nanosecond that my brain would release and go to sleep, Mr Power would "yip" and it of course would wake me.  I thought he wanted outside, so we would go through the routine of me letting him outside into the fenced yard, where he would pee, drink a gallon or two from the pool, jump on the motorhome step( his signal that he is wanting back inside).  I would open the door and he would stand in the open doorway looking at me and just STANDING letting the heat out and the cold or rain in, and making it difficult to keep the cat inside.  After a minute or so, I would walk out onto the steps, and ask him to go inside.  Since he is afraid of the door ( it gouged him in the hip last year) he is reluctant to trust that the door won't get him again.

Power's hip injury after treatment

So he has the habit of standing in the doorway for a LO-O-O-O-NG time, and if the door moves even slightly, will back out of the opening, and stay in the yard, refusing to come near the door.  To me this understandable and I give him jackpot treats for coming inside!
Sometimes I stand by the door and make sure that the door can't swing shut and get to Power.  Getting him inside is sometimes easy and sometimes very hard!

I decided maybe he needed a night light, and I decided to leave an LED light on at night!  That worked (seemingly) for a few weeks into months, and with the jammies, and the light I was getting my sleep again!  Yipee-e-e-e!

About two or three weeks ago, Power started to do him "waking mom up" routine again!  He had his jammies on, he had a warm place to sleep, he had a night light!   I told him to be quiet and go to sleep he would comply for about 1 1/2 minutes!, then start all over again.  If I got out of bed , went to the living room to sleep in my laz-e-boy recliner he would go right back to sleep and never make a peep the rest of the night!

I began to suspect that he was trying to train me to stay near him!  I did not want him to be successful in that instance, if it was so!

One night a few nights ago, I decided to let him bark and cry till he got tired of it and quit.  I was listening for almost thirty minutes, and he never quit for one second!  This was very hard on my nerves, and I'm sure my neighbors were hearing it!  I finally got out of bed, went to the living room, and stood there looking at Power (such an innocent face)

this face couldn't be guilty of plotting to keep me awake!

I was beginning to get desperate, and wanted to find a solution before he became so indoctrinated in his mind that keeping me awake was a permanent problem.

So, in desperation, I decided to hook a leash to his collar and tied the other

end to the leg of the sofa.  He immediately laid down on his bed and went to sleep!  He stayed quiet the rest of the night!  So the next night I repeated the leash trick and again he slept the night through!

What in the world is this about?!

Any ideas, anybody?!