housetraining/crate

Question
I have a 9 month old cockapoo who has been pooping his crate and eating it now he even pees his crate. He is fed high quality food and never table food (on purpose we have kids so every so often he will find a crumb)  He gets plenty of out side time and will even go when told "go potty" outside.  This is a mess and i need advice.  The longest he is left alone is 5-6 hours and thats not often during the day. He will also go inside our home i am worried he will never learn.  Please, any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.  This is our third dog our first two were sucessfully crate trained way before 9 monhts, the only difference we adopted them from a rescue as pupppies.  This time we wanted a smaller dog with little shedding so we picked Charlie after the breeder was recommened from friends who also have dogs from the same breeder.  I know this may be more on me than the puppy, again any help is great.

Answer
That is a problem I have never had, or seen much discussion of by sources I have confidence in.  I am sure as you have struggled with it you have found advice that dogs don't do that.  Your puppy must not have read those books.  Has he done is since you had him and how old was he when you got him?  I get my puppies at 7 weeks.  Before that, they live in a large whelping box the mother has plenty of room to keep clean.  I blame such problems on breeder that don't allow the mother to keep the whelping area clean and keep the puppies past 8 weeks.  Puppies forced to live in filth and never left alone before 12 weeks may not do very well.  

I think it is the stress of being left alone.  I don't think you are leaving him alone too long.  Before I retired, we often left puppies as young as 7 weeks alone 4-5 hours with no more than a few accidents.  Try filling a small Kong with peanut butter and freezing it.  It should take a long time to lick it out.  By that time, he may be tired enough to fall asleep.  He may find he enjoys a clean crate and work at controlling himself.  

Obedience training may help too, creating the right relationship between you and him.