Please help with a training issue

Question
Dear Charlotte B,
I have a 4 year old Beagle who was very well trained up until last November.  He did have very occasional accidents which were always explainable...lately he has been pooping and peeing in the house consistantly, at least once a week.  We are becoming very frustrated with this behaviour.  We read that it might be smell related and recently had the carpet steam cleaned paying special attention to the area in the upstairs hallway where he repeatedly soils.  Two days later he has peeed and pooped in ths area yet again.  I admit I became very angry when I found this mess.  I took him to the spot and scolded him in a very angry tone saying "No!" emphatically.  I would never hit my dog but I know I was angry and this came across in the way I handled him.  He was lying on his bed and I got his leash, put it on him, and made him walk with me to the spot.  I then put him outside and did not let him back in.  I am sure this caused him great bewiderment as I am not certain he was aware what he did wrong in hindsight. He cowered the whole rest of the day and I felt horrible.  I am becoming very frustrated with this situation and came close to losing my patience completely, so I really need some advice on how to deal with it properly.  It seems to me that the problem started one weekend when we were away overnight and he was left in the house alone for about 24 hours. I had asked a friend to try to check on him and she could not make it.  He had more than one accident in the house at this time, and has not stopped since.  The funny thing is the accidents he had that weekend were in my bedroom where he sleeps, and all the subsequent accidents have been in the upstairs hallway in the same spot in front of the linen closet.  He usually does this on the sly so we do not catch him in the act, and it is usually at night or in the early morning (Though there have been a couple of daytime incidents too).  I was certain that he had simply become conditioned by scent to thinking this was his "indoor" bathroom, hence the cleaning.  Could it be possible that he is so conditioned to going there now, that when the carpet was clean he deliberately tried to re-establish his bathroom there?  We normally Kennel him in a Kennel near our home when we are away.  They look after him very well, and we have never had a problem. The weekend in question our kennel was fully booked, and having had a bad experience with trying a different kennel in the past, we decided to chance leaving him alone.  He has never been alone overnight, though he is okay being left for fairly long periods in the day (but no more than 8 hours). We do not crate him when we are away, or at night. My friend was supposed to go in the evening and we returned in the late morning the following day. We half expected a mess when we returned home, but thought this was better than traumatizing him with a new kennel. Of course we did not expect him to be alone for 24 hours. Sigh.  I can see now that this established a pattern.  Perhaps the dog believes he cannot trust us and so he has figured out his own alternative for situations where he feels he may be frustrated or upset by having to work at getting our attention. Please adivse us, if you can, on how we might try to fix this problem.
Thank-you so much,
Cheryl Philips
P.S. There is nothing physically worng with Buddy.  He does not mess the house during the day even if left alone, and still goes to the bathroom outside most of the time...it is almost as if he thinks that if he can't go outside, or if he gets up in the night or the early morning and there is no one awake to let him outside, then it is okay to use his "indoor toilet" in the upstairs hallway.  Previous to this, he would come to the side of the bed and whine and we would know he needed to be let out, and would get up and do ths.  Now he does not bother, he just goes in the hallway.  How can we let him know that it is not acceptable to use the toilet in the house?!
Thanks Again.  Cheryl

Answer
Hi cheryl;
Steam cleaning doesn't always take away the odor so the animals can't smell it.
You can get all the odor out so the human nose can't detect it, but the animals can.
Also, the leaving him alone could be a big factor.
He could have been a bit traumatized by being left alone for that long a time, something like a thunderstorm may have scared him. If he is not normally afraid of such things, being laft alone may have been different. He may have been more afraid.
Maybe he felt abandoned.
Imagine the things that could have occured to a human, especially a child in that circumstance.
Dogs are just not that different from us.

That was such a new experience for him.
It could be too, that it just made him mad. Maybe he felt betrayed or that you played a dirty trick on him, and he is being spiteful.
Get some simple Solution and clean the carpet where he goes.
I get it at Petsmart, and I think Walmart carries it.
It is supposed to remove the odor so the animal can't smell it.
You may have to clean it more than once.
If you can close off that area so he can't get to it, that would help maybe.
I use time out fpr punishment.
When he pees or poops there, close him up in a small room, where he has not much room, no toys, nothing but boredom.
Chew him out all the way and tell him he was a bad boy and he is going to time out.
With each offense, give the chewing, and increase the time he spends in time out.
even my worst stubborn brat will act like a little gentleman when he is being a jerk and I say "Max, do you want to go to time out?"
He straightens up like mommy's little angel.
Beagles are a little persnickerty anyway. they can get an attitude.
The little Beagle we had a long time ago, when you refused to play with her, she would run in our nedroom and pee on the floor by your side of the bed.
She always got the place of the person she wanted to punish.
Charlotte