Accidents in the house

We have adopted two JRTs who are 6 and 8. They came from a home where, as far as we know, were never mistreated. It has been almost two months since we brought them home with no problems. Recently, the 6 year old female began to urinate and deficate in our basement. She has always been a fairly nervous dog, we are told, but she generally doesn't exhibit signs that she is stressed out other than shaking for a minute or so if she is startled by a loud noise.

I am not sure what is causing this behavior or how to have her stop since we can't seem to catch her in the act.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

Thank you in advance for the information.

Caite

Does she have a crate? A place of her own she can go hide out when she's stressed? If she does, give her a piece of your clothing in there and shut her in whenever you can't be watching her... maybe stress has built up and she's unable to figure out a way to work it out.

I'd say make sure she's got her own space and go back to baby puppy crate training for a bit, see if she gets control of herself.

I hope it works out... I'm having trouble housetraining my puppy right now, so I feel for ya. Without pee or poo, I think everyone would own 20 dogs!