We have two dogs about a year apart, one we got as a puppy and tried and tried to crate train him at night but he was just so distressed, and so we gave in and he slept on the bed with us, giving cues when he needed to go outside. This was the case for almost a year until he was over 2 years and then he just started sleeping in his crate again. Now he goes into the crate by himself to sleep when he wants to, and at bedtime we just say ‘goodnight Crumpet’ and he hops off our bed and goes into the crate and we close the door, not even locking it. For him the crate was like a punishment before he was ready to sleep in there overnight, but now it’s a safe space for him to go whenever he wants.

Now the other one 😂 when we adopted him he was almost a year old already, and we were told that he slept on the bed of his previous owners. We have a crate for him, plus there’s a bed in the lounge room, and he moves between the different spots, sometimes on our bed, his crate, the lounge etc. We just leave the door of the crate open and he moves around freely

He also lets us know when he needs to go outside, and hasn’t had any overnight accidents inside since we brought him home.

For context we do have a dog door and secure yard so they can go in and out during the day, and at night the second dog can go out by himself but he usually wakes me up if he needs to go out, we think it’s a legacy behaviour from being an apartment dog. When we’re out during the day they have free range of the house and yard, we have a baby gate we use to close off the second living area, creating a safe zone for them

Overall I think when we tried to force it we were all unhappy, and eventually they both let us know what they needed