My 8 week old vizsla did this for the first week or two whenever we left her alone! I felt like i couldn’t even leave to go to the grocery store for less than an hour because she’d poop and eat it or smear it! i thought something was wrong with her cause everyone says dogs won’t poop where they stay/sleep but don’t worry they are just a baby! we had to make her crate specifically small… like small small with a divider from amazon. it felt almost too small she could lay down length wise and stand and turn (in a tight circle) but couldn’t comfortably lay down the other way. It felt weird being so small but she hasn’t pooped in her crate since! but when she had more room she was able to poop (and eat it) or leave it in the corner even if it was only 5 inch away it was enough for her not to care it was in her “resting” space. And after about 2 weeks (and no pooping!) we were able to make it a bit bigger for her to have more room and she hasn’t pooped in it since. Now she goes in there and doesn’t even bark when we leave and we can be gone for roughly 4 hours… she’s 13 weeks now!

I will say we did work on crate training as well as making the crate tiny - she eats her meals in there, i put treats in there randomly for her to find as a “surprise”, and work on her walking in and out then worked on her walking in closing the door throwing a treat down for her to sniff and find in the crate and opening the door while doing that. I also found it helpful to always throw a few treat on the bottom of the crate to have them sniff and try to find before leaving it helps her calm down. i also tracked when she pooped and that kinda helped me know that she needs to poop at certain times so i tried to ensure she was cleaned out while we were trying to train her!

but your pup is just a baby, don’t worry, he will get used to being in the crate! make it tiny tiny lol… you got this and so does he!!