Shedding and potty accidents

Question
My wife and I Love Shelties. We owned a sable and white male for 12 years and he was absolutely wonderful. We miss him dearly. We got him before we had kids (and he behaved better than most) We now Have a petite female approx 4 years old. (we rescued her from a bad home which she was put in after a couples divorce.)( we think she had pretty good treatment before the bad home which she was only in for a few weeks) When we found her she was fastened in a small pen in the hot sun with very little shelter. She was jumping almost 5 or 6 feet high trying to leap out of the fence. she was not being shown any attention or being walked etc.( we found this out from the neighbors) After some serious persistence ( from my 11 year old daughter) and much bargaining, we finally got her out of there. we took "Sandy" home and she bonded with my daughter instantly, but was very afraid of the rest of us for weeks, especially me. (being the man of the house) After a while she bonded with all of us and is so loving and grateful to us for taking her. she can't get enough attention and now probably Loves me as much or more than anyone in the house though still afraid of most men. Sorry to give you so much info, but our biggest problem ( along with constant shedding) is that we recently built a new bonus room upstairs and a new bedroom for my daughter. We intalled very nice berber carpet in both rooms. Sandy all of a sudden began sneaking upstairs and using the new bonus room as her potty and if we close the door, which we don't like doing ( defeats some of the purpose of why we built the room.)she goes in my daughters room and uses the berber carpet.  Please help, we never had a potty problem to speak of before with her and we hate to cage her up all day, she has always had free run of the house. We have tried scolding, meticulous cleaning and deodorizing of the carpet. We cant let her ruin our home. HELP!

Answer
Hi Randy,

Ok, this is unusual. Unfortunately with past treatment I do understand your delimma.

Let's stick to the basics first and see if it works:
Only feed and water when you can walk her for outdoor potty.  Make sure you feed and water her at the same time every day, whatever her/your schedule allows.  When she does outdoor potty its a fantastic wonderful happy thing!

Get a crate.  An open wire crate can come from either a store or look at yard sales.  You need one large enough for the pup to stand, strech, and curl up in a ball.  Get a blanket or soft clothes (for instance: our Tucker loves to lay in any dirty laundry on the floor) and put it inside the crate.  Take a treat over to the cage, and give it to her from the inside of the cage.  Leave the door open.  Praise her and tell her she is very good!

After a couple of days of treat, she will associate what word you use (we say "want a cookie?" our friends say "go to work") with going to the crate for a treat.  Once she starts going in voluntarily, then you can close the door.  

Leave her in the crate during the times she would normally sneak off to go potty.  Or while you are gone to work, or asleep... whatever.  TRY to NEVER leave her in more than 8 hours TOPS!  

With love and patience you should have no trouble.  I would also advise baby-gates for the rooms or hallways to the rooms she has been using until you get this under control.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need any further advice!

'sneezes
Dave