Crate Training 11 wk. male - desperate need of help!

by Andrew
(Pgh, Pennsylvania)

Cesar Millan's or any other site didn't address anything of my puppy's behavior. He is a Boston Terrier 11 weeks (had him for two). The basic scenario is that he pees and/or poops himself in his cage more often than not, and he barks/yelps/howls/digs/jumps nearly the entire time he is in there?! He has already been 100% pad trained (both pee and poop) upstairs and downstairs and eats in his cage. He will poop in the exact side of the cage where we put the food, and will trample his feet in it numerous times during his time of distress. Both he and the cage need a bath almost every time we take him out! Once we forgot to secure the cage tray and he treadmilled the whole thing out onto the floor!

My cage (a black iCrate) is properly divided to correct size for standing and turning, and contains nothing in it but a chew toy - if we put any kind of blanket or bed he will wet it. We've been feeding him in his cage (with it latched) and he eats and drinks as fast as any animal would! Two feet away from his cage there is a radiant electric heater which he likes to lay in front of when outside of the cage (our basement is cold this time of year). We only put him in when we go to sleep or when we go out to run errands for a few hours. Before putting him in, he has always drank, ate, peed, pooped, and exercised sufficiently, and has usually at least begun to fall asleep on his own. Last night, he magically found poop to excrete in 2.5 hours he was in there, and he had just pooped at least twice before going in! The first 2 days he diarrhea'd but now he just makes normal soft logs.

I figure two causes of behavior can be anxiety/anger or my house is haunted, which I'm fairly certain it isn't. He doesn't seem to like being constricted at all, in any size environment. During the daytime, we tried penning off the 10x10 room he was in while we were upstairs and he did the same kind of behavior, barking/jumping and pooping away from his training pad, etc. At that point we abandoned that idea in fear of him trying to chew on our exercise equipment and electrical cords and dig at the base of the drywall which is not yet baseboarded.

My wife and I are just confused as to what to do. We visited him twice at the pet store before we got him and he was sleeping comfortably on a blanket in a brightly lit cage, with all other animals and people around him, and this behavior seems contradictory to the environment.

Any further suggestions of what we can try??