DOG ONLY POOPS IN HOUSE

Question
A female dog was recently left on our doorstep so I don't
have many details. It is a black mutt or mixed breed and
appears to be 6-12 months old.  

We have had the dog for about 3 weeks and during this time
we have had no idea where to begin to successfully potty
train, so our lack of success resulted in her peeing and
pooping in lots of places.  

After reading some more we decided crate training would give
us more consistency.  

Today we fed her at approx 8am.  We took her out at 8:45am  
to potty.  NO results.  

We crated her from 9-11 until returned home.  There was no
food or water in her crate for those 2 hours.  

We took her out for 20 min stints and if she did not produce
we put her back in the crate for 20-30 mins.  We repeated
this over and over between 11a and 2:45p.  She never pooped.  
She only produced small amounts of urine.  We reinforced her
efforts and gave her a treat. No food or water in the crate.

We crated her from 3-5.  Came home and repeated the above
from 5 -6pm.  Can you believe she did not poop not one time?  
It was very frustrating.  We leashed her, walked around the
backyard with her.  Used a command word and no poop.  

When I brought her in the last time, she wriggled away from
me and went directly into the dining room and pooped!!!

It seems she only wants to poop INSIDE the house.  What can
we do to break this very bad habit?? I do not believe she is
spayed.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.  

Donna

Answer
Hi, Donna,

What you will need to do is approach the housebreaking process as if this was a puppy.  I am sending you information on housebreaking, cleaning up messes, and crate training.  If you have further questions or concerns after rading this information, please feel free to contact me again.

Also, your vet can probably determine if the dog has been spayed or not.  If she has not, I strongly recommend it.

http://www.hsmo.org/m_obedience/behavior/dogcrate.html
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/crate-train.pdf

http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/clean-stains.pdf
http://www.hsmo.org/m_obedience/documents/CanineHousesoilingProblems.pdf
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/retrain-dog.pdf
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/pup-housetrain.pdf
http://www.marinhumanesociety.com/Behavior/Handouts/Housetraining.pdf