6 month old female Malamute relieves herself in the basement only

Question
Our 6 month old female Alaskan Malamute is house trained in our home and also on the deck.  We have a bell at the door and she either rings the bell, or paws at the glass to let us know she needs to go outside.  At night, she is in her crate in our home from 10:00 PM to 4:30 am and does not relieve herself.  When she goes to the basement to play, or it is raining out, she does not let us know she needs to go and will just stop and relieve herself, sometimes both.  We have used the same method to try and house train her for the basement, but with no success.  During the day while we are at work, she is in a 10 x 10 pen in the basement since we do not want to crate her for 9 to 10 hrs.  She relieves herself in the pen every day while we are away.  We cannot give her interactive toys due to fear of contamination from the urine and feces, which causes boredom for her.  We are stuck for answers and would appreciate any advice.  

Answer
It seems to me that she has been inadvertently trained to eliminate in the basement.

First of all, when you are home, I would prevent her from going downstairs into the basement by shutting the door or blocking it off. "Force" her to go outside on a regular basis, rain or shine. Most dogs are just not entirely reliable at six months, and you need to stay on top of her elimination times (keep a journal) and get her out... I would say every 2-3 hours, unless you want her to regress.

At six months, you cannot expect a puppy to last for ten hours straight... particularly if she was fed in the morning; it is just too much to ask. You need to either hire someone, like a neighbor, to come in and let her out over lunchtime, or put down potty pads in one end of the pen so that she can eliminate. I would change the pen so that it was more rectangular... longer, rather than square... so that she can eliminate away from where she sleeps more easily. Put a crate at the other end with the door off so that she has a place to sleep during the day, and her water bowl or bucket (hanging from the wire) can be near the crate. With this arrangement, I think she would tend to keep toys, chewthings, closer to the crate than her potty area. I wouldn't worry too much about contamination if her worming, etc. has been kept up-to-date. Just wash everything periodically.

Two other options are to kennel her in a pen outside when you are working (not my favorite choice), or to put her in doggy daycare a couple times a week.