My 1 year old does this exact same thing. Lucky for me, my husband gets up with her and babies her until I get up at 6 am. I tried telling him to let her bark, but she ends up waking up the whole house ( cats, parrots, kids) and he says he can't go back to sleep after that anyway. So now she barks us awake every morning. This is fairly recent that she started this. He used to think the same thing- that she really had to pee or something, but she rarely does.
Another even more recent development is she barks louder and with more excitement as he is getting up to get her. Her crate sits on his nightstand so she will go to sleep at night. None of this is likely helpful, I just though you may feel better if you're not alone on this one.
