We have a German Shepherd mix who is almost 11 years old. She is a little overweight and has arthritis or problematic joints. Up until this point, she has normally stayed downstairs, on the main floor of our house, because that's normally where the rest of the family is. She used to only come upstairs if most of the other family members were up her. In the past few weeks, despite the difficulty she has going up and down stairs because of her weight and old age, she has been coming upstairs more often. She usually comes up when someone is up there, but sometimes she comes up on her own and sleeps in the bathroom or one of our bedrooms. She has also begun scratching at my bedroom door early in the morning, either when no one else is around (I don't know how she knows I'm in my room) or when someone else IS near her...which is the weirdest part. She peed in my room once, but that was at a time when she was very nervous.
I know older animals sometime go off into corners or closets when they are close to death, but she doesn't seem to be having any more problems than she has in the past couple years, and she has been behaving like this for a few weeks now. I don't think it has to do with temperature either, as it is usually cooler downstairs. Any theories as to why she is acting like this?
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