8 mo old English Bulldog was taught to potty on blankets

Question
Okay, so I pulled everything out of the puppy's crate, and he does great!  No peeing on anything!  Rather than keeping him locked in the crate while we're at work during the day, we put him in the bathroom with his crate open in the doorway so he'll have more room to get out and stretch.  He hasn't done a thing in the house since his blankets are gone.  I have caught him a couple of times, however, going into the other puppy's crate and scratching her blankets around (like he used to do in his before he'd pee).  I'd take him outside and he'd do his thing.  Since he'd been taught to go one blankets for the last 8 months, how long should we expect it to take for him to stop relating them to peeing?  How do we go about making sure he knows that they're not to pee on?  He's not big on treats, but we always make a celebration when he goes outside.  Also, he HATES his crate, and we end up having to carry him to it and push him inside.  He's fine once he's in there, but I'm sure that this method doesn't make him any happier with it.  Is this something that he'll eventually come to accept, or is there something else we can do?  We've tried treats, toys, bones...I'm not sure what else to do to make this easier for him.

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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
3 days ago, we adopted a wonderful calm easy-going male English Bulldog.  He's 8 months old.  His previous owners said he was housebroken, but apparently housebroken, to them, meant they taught him to potty on his blankets, and then they wash them and put them back down for him to use again.  We've discovered in the last couple of days that it's not only his blanket he potties on...it's ANY blanket, rug, clothing that's on the floor.  He doesn't do it when we're with him.  We take him out on a regular schedule with our female English Bulldog.  He potties in the crate while we're gone during the day and during the night.  I don't want to leave him just laying on the plastic tray in the bottom of his crate, but he potties on anything we put in there for him to lay on.  Any suggestions?
-----Answer-----
Take everything out of his crate until this problem is resolved. You're going to have to start from square one as if you were training a new puppy.  Hopefully he will take a lesson from your older dog and it won't take long. Don't let him out of your sight in the house unless he's crated. Take up as much off the floor as possible that he might soil.

This isn't impossible but it's going to require consistency and patience.

Answer
The waiting period for him to forget about the blankets is not easy to gauge. I would wait at least a month or two and then give it a try, but not in his crate at all, ever. He'll adjust. If he pees on one again, go back to no blankets again. This may be something he never gets past or he may never pee on one again. No one knows for sure.

As far as putting up a fuss going into the crate, you really need to fine something he likes, a lot, a toy, a treat, anything that he only gets when he goes into his crate. Here, if mine here the biscuit box rattle they all head for their crate and wait for their treat. Plus, we make a game out of it too. It's just a crap shoot until you come up with the "magic formula" that works for your dog.

Good job by the way!