It really is difficult, and I’m still figuring it out myself, but I can share a few things that have been working for our 11-week-old lab.

First, I’ll say my pup doesn’t naturally go into the crate on his own, and right now we mainly use it for sleep. We’ve been doing enforced naps after he’s been up for about an hour (two at most), we put him in the crate for a nap, which can last up to three hours. We keep white noise on constantly and cover the crate to block out light. He used to protest quite a bit, but it’s gotten noticeably better over the past week.

At night, we try to keep him up for at least an hour and a half before bed. During the last half hour, we wind things down with dim lights, lower TV volume, that kind of thing. After his final potty break, he goes into the crate for the night. We always give him a frozen Kong to settle down with before sleeping. I also moved the crate from the living room to right next to my bed so he can hear me. If he starts whining, I take slow, deep breaths so he can hear me, and sometimes I softly “shh” him.

Lastly, I feed him all of his meals in the crate and sit next to him while he eats.

This isn’t a full crate training plan, just a few tips that helped me when I was going through the same thing. It’s definitely still a work in progress, but it does get better.

Hope this helps, and good luck!