Adult adopted dog pooped in crate

Question
Our adopted dog pooped in her crate this morning. She is a 4 - 5 year old German Shepherd-Siberian Husky-?? mix who knows us well. She and her 2-person family lived next door for 3 years off and on. All of last year I did daycare for her while the mom was at work and the boy was at school. They had to move on 9/1/07 saying that they were going to give her to us. It took them until early November to decide that her quality of life would be much better with us. I picked her up on 11/10/07 and she has been very settled and content from day one--even went into her new crate on her own the first day. We only use the crate at night since we had some episodes of pooping on the floor when she was with us for 5 days while the family was packing up and moving.

All has gone well until my husband was awakened at 2:00 am this morning by a whimpering, VERY unhappy dog who had smeared poop all over her bedding. The only changes in her life were: 1)our 2-night visit to my mother for Thanksgiving, but since we got home Saturday evening and the pooping didn't happen until early Tuesday morning, I'm not sure that's the culprit, and 2)since Sunday morning, I have been trying to get her and our cat acclimated to one another by allowing them in the same space for short periods of time over the day. So, these "visits" happened off and on Sunday and Monday. Could that be bothering her? She gets daily walks, some longer than others and can go outside on demand (fenced yard). Any suggestions would be so appreciated! Thanks!

Answer
It could be stress,and she could be 'marking' her crate to keep the cat away(which she may see as a 'threat')if that is the case a good idea would be to pet the cat with a blanket or towel and have the dog sniff it or even play with it while petting her so she knows the cat won't hurt you or her

It could also be a change in the type of food she is on,or it could be a change in the time she is fed-sometimes something as simple as feeding the dog an hour or so earlier then normal may fix the problem