Border terrier bitch has begun soiling in room while Im there

Question
QUESTION: I've a 9 month old Border Terrier bitch who has been completely paper trained from a very young age, and as I live in an apartment I have always allowed paper down incase she needs to toilet between walks. The paper is always by the front door and there have never been any issues with her going elsewhere or even any accidents.
recently, she has started soiling in the living room, not only that, but while I'm in the room. She still pees on the paper if she needs to, but solid waste is recurrently being deposited beside my chair!
There have been no changes as such to her lifestyle - I work from home, so she is always with me and rarely left alone.
What could be causing this?

ANSWER: KT -

Whenever there is a significant change in behavior, it is well worth the time and trouble to rule out something medical. Additionally, the fact that it's feces instead of urine (which could be female marking) would make me wonder about medical things right off.

You say no changes, so I assume no change in diet ?

Has she started going into heat, or do you have her spayed ?

Do you have her on a schedule of walks, or is she able to tell you that she has to go ?

Are there other animals in the house ?  Ages, breeds, gender, spayed/neutered ??

If you could answer these questions, it would help me get a more complete picture.

Thanks

-Beth

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Beth
thanks for such a fast reply

Tally has always been fed a complete dry food, although I occasionally have fed her plain chicken and rice if I haven't made it to the shop - so not a change as such; she has had this as a subsitute many times.

I believe she has started her first season, as last week there were several days where I would randomly find watery droplets of blood around on the flooring, also her nipples have been very much enlarged for around a fortnight.
I have spoken to a more experienced border owner who lives locally about the signs of Tally's season starting and he said that it seemed to be the case, although the there was no enlargement of her genitalia yet.

I came to own Tally by chance and so was unfamiliar with the breed, however she is incredibly intelligent and the amount of time we spend in each other's company has given us a strong bond.

I accepted that living in a 3rd floor apartment, Tally would be better served paper trained as her norm. This means she is not under any pressure to go to the toilet at any time, she can always go even at the flat.
However she does get regular walks as there is a nature reserve beside where I live and we go there each day for a long walk as well as her accompanying me on any shorter outings I may have to go on.

There are no other animals in the household, just her and myself, and visitors who call in rgularly, but are the same two or three people.

I've been careful not to spoil her in terms of her ruling me - she is not allowed in bedrooms or bathroom, the open plan living room, kitchen and hallway are open to her. She knows her commands such as down, sit, no, put it down and obeys them, albeit unwillingly at times!
All I could think of was that she is spoilt in terms of attention, as she is rarely left on her own simply as I am home all of the time.
The only difference at all is that over the last few weeks I have had more work to do and have spent more time on the computer, but she is still in the same room as me and isn't displaying any signs of demanding my attention when I am busy, she carries on as she always has, apart from this soiling.  

Answer
She sounds lovely and like she has a very nice life with you. Borders are wonderful, though it does require a certain sense of humor to appreciate any terrier !

When I think of a spoiled dog, I think of a dog who has developed bad habits out of the disinterest or extreme coddling of owners. Neither of which is the case for you.

Current dog training theory is that to eliminate a behavior, you provide an interruption to the bad behavior, and immediately ask for a good behavior.  That provides you an opportunity to make the time period of negative interraction extremely short, followed by a longer positive interraction.

In this instance, I would recommend a couple of things.

1.  If you are in the room and she goes to do it, start with a verbal interruption such as Eh-Eh-Eh (Mine often hear "Who do you think you are?") Then, as she interrupts her behavior, call her too you with no more negative tone and ask for a command that she has absolutely perfect.  Sit is a very common one, and I tend to use "Look at me."

Then treat her for obeying.  

2.  If she will not interrupt for a verbal comment, try a squirt bottle and immediately put it down (since she is not likely to come to you when you're holding it).

An important point to treating. Treats carry differing value for dogs.  Cheese is often a very high value treat and can be used for training high value situations.  Also, dogs respond to the frequency of treats, rather than volume.  10 treats the size of pencil erasers will provide much more reinforcement than one treat of the same total size.

3.  If these simply don't work, you may want to leash her to you.  I hesitate to recommend this since I suspect this is not actually a willful act. Remember, dogs are not nearly as disgusted by bodily functions as we are.  When I am working with a pushy or willful dog in my home, I will leash them to me and then just ignore them. It's a non-confrontational way to emphasize your control of the house. I usually only do it for a couple of days.

I suspect it is more closely related to her heat cycle though.  Unfortunately, I've always done rescue and never done any breeding so I'm not familiar with whether or not that can loosen their bowels  She might just need to go more often during this time.

I'm sorry I don't have any pat answers. I sure hope I gave you a couple of ideas to try out.

-Beth