It's like having a baby in the house

Okay, so I have to vent some frustration. Our amazing-in-almost-every-way dog Belle has been having some potty issues, and after following the advice of both professionals and non-professionals alike we don't know what to do anymore.

Belle is about a year and a half old, and we have had her living at our house for about 6 months. Of course we had the initial potty training concerns, but she did imporove and had no incidents for relatively a long time. She gets us up at about 4:30 or 5am every morning to go potty. And this is after just taking her outside when we go to bed around midnight. During the span of the day, I would say she gets to go outside at least 10-15 times, sometimes staying out there for over an hour.

We did discover that she had urinary incontinence, as a result from spaying her. But putting her on daily medicene took care of that. When she was dealing with urinary incontinence she would only pee in her sleep, which is an unusual thing for dogs to pee in their "den" or bed. Now, we are almost sure that it is a behavior issue.

The front living room in our house is the only place she has ever gone potty. I don't know what it is about that room, but from day 1 that has been her spot to potty in the house. Even after barracading it off, she somehow has gone under/over/past the barriers. Last night was also a "first". Until last night, she would only tinkle in the house...but this time she left some poo. (and not to get too graphic here, but it wasn't runny so we know its not likely due to a medical reason) There was nothing out of routine for her that day, including a trip to the park. So we don't know why she is going out of her way to potty in the front room.

Belle is not a dog to crate. We tried for months, but she gets very distressed. Try as we did to make it a positive experience, she looks at it like punishment. Who knows, maybe her past owners who abandoned her used the crate for punishment? Most dogs do not crate well if you miss the window of opportunity when they are young puppies. Besides all of that, she is a great...no....aweseome dog around the rest of the entire house.

If anyone has any other suggestions...please pass them along!