Inappropriate Elimination?

I wasn't sure whether or not to put this under Health or Training, so here goes -

Ronin's a great dog, but occasionally he does ONE thing that really bothers me... he poops in the house. It's once in a blue moon, with no warning - usually after I leave him at home alone for a long time (i.e. take Ilsa somewhere but not him) or when he's under stress.

He'll do it in the middle of the night, and not make a sound - he won't ask to go out or anything. He must just get up, poo, then go back to sleep. And this is AFTER he has his nightly poo and potty before we all go to bed. It doesn't matter if he's got full run of the house or if he's shut in my room... he'll do it in the same room that I'm in!

Now, I know his previous owners crated him a lot - like 20 hours a day. And because of this, sometimes he had no choice but to poo in his crate. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but it's a bit of backstory that may help.

My vet has nothing to recommend, really.. except what I'm already doing - feed him dinner early, make sure he gets to go outside and poop before bedtime...

... and honestly he does this once every two months or so - *something* sets him off, it's not something he does just to do.

Any ideas, suggestions, advice? I do not want to crate him at night, because he is crated during the day when I'm at class and/or work.

I don't know if your problem is similar to the one I recently discovered with my Dobe, but I thought I'd put this out there, just in case.

We kept finding little poo balls on Pepsi's bed, and we thought she was carrying them in from the yard and putting them on her bed. We tried all kinds of things to get her to stop and couldn't figure out why the little poos kept appearing on her bed.

Well, a few days ago I was admiring her as she was curled up on her bed, sleeping like a little angel, and I watched as a little poo ball fell out of her butt while she was dead asleep! Poor baby had been falsely accused of poo-collecting!

I tried to do some research on this and the only thing I could find that made sense was that there can be nerve damage from tail-docking that can cause this issue. We have an appt. with the vet to see if we can come up with any other answers.

Are you sure Ronin's awake when he leaves those little "presents"?

Yes, he's definitely awake - he'll poo somewhere where he doesn't sleep.

IMO it's a stress thing - this poor dog, I'm about ready to get him doggy prozac!