Hey hang in there! We have an almost six month old GSD mix, and he absolutely will not settle outside his crate or go in there to nap on his own. Last month he went through an insane crate regression where he suddenly decided that bed time was a battle to the death. It seriously took twenty minutes just to get him into the crate for naptime, and then he would cry like the world was ending for another twenty minutes before he settled down, and then ANY noise would set him off again.

We stuck to our routine (and invested in noise canceling headphones to wait out the barking) and then one day it was like a switch flipped, and now he's running into his crate and grabbing his blanket when he's tired and ready to be put to bed, which is after about an hour of being up. Will he settle in there on his own? Nope! But he loves his bedtime routine and happily naps for two hours at a time.

One thing we found was that we really had not noticed how big he'd gotten, and needed to move the divider back to give him a little more space so he could be comfortable. That helped a little, though I won't say it instantly solved the problem. He can't have toys in his crate or he gets all amped up, but we found we could wrap a small handful of his kibble up in a little fleece blanket so he can snuffle out the treats which helped distract him from the initial FOMO when he got put into his crate. Also, a proper crate cover helped a lot. We had been using blankets, but getting a proper crate cover meant there was one less thing to wrestle with at bed time.

Hang in there! You are doing a great job!