<human>: Can you condense the text into three sentences or less?

Hi all, about 6 months ago my husband and I adopted a 6 month old puppy, we already had a 5 year old dog. Crate training has been going.... ok. My husband was able to go home for lunch when we first got her, but now his job has changed and he can't anymore. She now doesn't even sleep in the crate, and she is able to hold it all night with no problems. On weekend mornings when I sleep in, she knows to tell me she needs to go out.

However, in the crate during the day, she is unfortunately in there for about 9 hours frequently. Not only do I feel terrible about this, but more often than not when I get home she has peed in the crate. I tried not putting a crate mat in there so there is nothing to absorb it, that resulted in a pee-soaked puppy who immediately shook all the pee off her, and onto me/my nice work clothes and the wall, so that ain't happening again. 

I am ready to give up on the crate for during the day at this point. What do you all think of an exercise pen? Or will this just make her feel as though she can pee in one corner of it and then hang out in the other corner and not help at all? We tried one time letting her stay out with the older dog all day (older dog is perfectly fine all day with free reign of the house) and she didn't have an accident, but she did chew up quite a bit of stuff. So I feel like it's the anxiety/depression about being cooped up that makes her have accidents, since she holds it for 9-10 hours when she's not cooped up.

Please spare me the suggestion of hiring someone to walk her during the day. We just can't afford it, and I am uncomfortable with someone I don't know having access to my house/dogs.
<bot>: What do you think of exercise pens instead of a crate for a dog that we have no choice but to leave for 9 hours a day?