Dog poop everywhere.

Smart Charlie!!! LOL  I had a friend one time who owned one of the dogs that were too smart for their own good.  She learned how to open the fridge and ate a whole uncooked roast one day while my friend was at work.  The fridge was an older kind and had the freezer inside the door on top.  Of course everything was thawed out and dripped all in the fridge.  She was livid but truly loved that mutt. 

For a long time, she would just open it up and look - never touching anything inside. One day, she ate a pound of raw bacon, a head of lettuce, a package of English muffins, and some cottage cheese (at least she was covering all the major food groups).

 
[sm=rotfl.gif] Sorry to laugh, but the visual is pretty funny!  She had her protein, veggies, starch and dairy!

My dog loves his crate too.  He has free run of the house now that he is older and reliable, but he chooses to sleep in his crate almost every night.  He naps there a lot too.  He has a fluffy dog bed in the living room he could sleep on, but he prefers his crate. 
 
I think when people say crating is inhumane they are thinking like people and not like dogs.  To a person it seems like prison.  But dogs aren't people.  Dogs are den animals and they typically find it comforting to have a small space to curl up in. 
 
I was skeptical about crating too, until I saw how well my dog took to it and how attached he is to his crate.  It's his own safe space, his room, where nobody bothers him and he can get away and curl up safe and sound. 
 
But don't just throw him in there.  Take the time to introduce the crate gradually to your dog, using yummy treats and games to make it a fun, happy place for him.  Feed him in there with his door open to start until he's comfortable, then begin closing the door for very short periods and gradually increase as he gets comfortable with it.  Make sure he has something safe to chew on and fresh water in there.  I think you'll be a convert as you watch how he responds.  Good luck! 

Kinda got a little off subject here.  Our hunting dogs are all in pens, and they are happy in there.  My pet pig knows when I say "go to bed" he goes in his crate and sleeps quietly all night (except for his snoring).  We have one dog that came to us crate trained with many behavioral problems, particularly possesion and dominance.  He had aggression problems.  He had been passed around through 8 different homes in 6 months.  His crate traveled with him, making his possession of his crate even worse.  He improved 100% when we took his crate away.  He has now been with us for almost a year, everyone loves him.
 
As far as the pooping goes, my dogs poop when they get mad.  For example, when I was a teenager, my black lab went everywhere with me during the summer.  She came to the barn, trailriding, the beach, she was always with me.  We had a covered porch with a pool and a doggy door to the back yard.  She knew how to use the door.  However, when I went back to school, I started spending less time with her since the barn where I boarded was closer to the school than the house was.  Every day, I would find one drop of poop just inside the doggy door.  I can just picture her trying to squeeze that one piece out just to make a point.  If we left her inside the house, she was happy to be in and wouldn't poop.  Once I started taking her with me more often, it stopped.
Our hunting dogs do the same thing.  If one dog gets hurt hunting and comes in the house for a few days, there will be one pile from each of the other dogs the next morning.  Once everyone is back in their pens, the pooping stops.  If my brother locks his doggy door at his house, his full grown, potty trained dogs will prove their point by pooping in the house even if he is only gone for an hour or two.  I don't know, maybe my dogs just have attitudes, but its always been that way.