Peanut butter dreamin'

This is Potter. The puffy little center of my universe. The furry, smushy light of my life.
Of late, he is also the kennel-rattling, whimpering reason that I end up shooed from my bedroom at unreasonable hours of the wee early morn, fluffy black ball of dog directly after me, The Hub grumbling "sump'n wrong wif dog" as he shoves us towards the living room and falls back into bed.
Potter-pie, after 5 years of sleeping peacefully in his kennel until one of us opened the door each morning to greet him, has stopped sleeping through the night.
In attempting to determine why, I have had many conversations with him regarding this new-found love of the nightlife that go along these lines:

Me: "Mr. Binky, mommy is very tired. Do you want some water? What is wrong?"
Potter: Panting and wagging tale, eyes bright and VERY awake
Me: "Smoosh, you need to sleep all night in your own bed - you like your bed, remember?"
Potter: Nosing bone towards me and pawing his "I want peanut butter" dance
Me: "It is really late to have our bone, don't you want to go night-night?"
Potter: Tilting head to one side, continuing wiggly dance
Me: "Oh, alright - here is peanut butter bone, but just one dip.. Mommy is just going to lay down here in front of Sprout TV on the sofa and... zzzzzzz"
Potter: Chewing bone happily, thinking (I imagine) "ha ha, SUCKER!"

And I awaken with a start on the sofa with him curled up crowding my feet when The Hub (who is SO not the hero in this story) emerges from our cozy bed to make coffee.
Repeat that with alarming regularity for about the past two months.

What has become of my good boy who seemed to treasure the safe serenity of his big cave of a kennel? Am I destined to watch late night preschool programing every night for the foreseeable future? Is this God's (or even the dog's) way of telling us "just go ahead and have a kid - you'll be up for those feedings anyway"?
And why, at 3am, do I actually half expect him to open his furry little mouth and answer back any day now?