Apollo's new bad habit, PLEASE HELP!!

Well, this is sort of a long story. We recently got hit with the tail end of hurricane francis which caused a rare occurance in this area, a flood. The flood took our basement and filled it 4 inches with water. The water is gone, and most of the smell is but now there is a problem! we moved back in, just at the same time apollo had his surgery and the smell was gone. BUT!!!!
Now he's started to go poopy on the floor. He WAS fully housetrained, and would pace back and forth infront of the stairs if he needed to go outside and we let him out like every hour and a half but it's just not good enough he prefers the floor. Now he's got athena doing it, they seem to like to go in the most remote place of the basement, where most of the flooding occured. Atleast two to three times daily is when they do it. It's causing alot of problems, we were gone most of the day today, APollo and I. He pooped this morning on the rug two times, once outside, and once at my friends house. we came back and he went and squated in the corner, i didnt even get a chance to catch him and scold him. I dont know what to do, it's ruining our basement, it smells so bad down here, the smelled can be killed but what about this behavior(sp?) problem. Anyone have any ideas as to why he might be pooping on the floor all the time all of a sudden when he does it so frequently elsewhere? He never did this before the floor or before the surgery and the only idea i can peice together is that the surgery gave him a bit of a depression or SOMETHING, and the flood brought in dirt and stuff from the gardens, and the earthy smell is in the carpets so faint that only the dogs can smell it and therefore are thinking it's outside. Neither of them EVER do this, except for recently. Mom is trying to get me to sell Apollo because of this sudden problem, but i don't want to do that becuase i want to find out WHY he's doing this and try and fix it. I need a little help though

Okay, you're right on about the smell. Clorox the basement and the carpets undoubtedly need to be shampooed. Add an odor eliminating agent to the carpet shampoo, but test first to make sure it doesn't hurt the carpet. Do not use anything ammonia based, as that will complement the urine smell and defeat your purpose. After the Clorox, an orange based cleaner would be a good idea. They really don't like that smell at all.

The second part of this has more to do with the stress of the situation. When you left, you were upset and the dogs sensed that something forced you away from your home. When you returned, there were "wrong" smells all over, and you are still stressed, dealing with the clean up and just the whole experience of being displaced by a natural disaster. They sense that. They're re-establishing their territory. In their view of the world, something big and scary made everyone run away, then left its smell all over, claiming THEIR territory. Now they're claiming it back.

They may not feel safe outdoors yet, either. You'll want to work on that, spending time outside playing with them, walking, etc.

Just start over with the housetraining you used successfully in the past. And somebody (I wish I could remember who, it was a FANTASTIC idea) posted that she'd had success by scolding the "evidence" laying on the floor, making the dogs think that she was mad at the piles of poo.

I like to yell at the poo cause it's ugly and gross. And it's so big that i have to use a dust pan and a stick and scoop it up to throw in the toilet lol. When we left, we left on a good note. My friend came and picked us up and drove me up to see my dad, apollo came with us and whatnot. He had a good time, I tried to tell my mom it was the smell and i tried to get her to get a carpet cleaner. if you get RIGHT down and close to the carpet you can smell a little bit of a dirt smell. Not dirty, just dirt. Most of the flooding came from the walls of the house, our stupid drain pipe was broke and the water went RIGHT down the side to the very bottom lol. my mom said she could actually see the water bubbling up, that's what clicked it into my head, thanks so much renee my mom's gonna be thrilled to find a way to stop this, he hasn't done it today. I even got up at like, 5 in the morning to make sure he didn't do it again, and right went i went back to bed my mom told me to get out and let him out. I did and left him out for about 15-20 minutes so he could stay outside and stuff. Thanks so much for your help