A little late to the party - 14 1/2 weeks old and just starting crate training

Mistakenly we thought we might be able to forgo the whole crate training thing. My older dog never took to crate training as he is claustrophobic and he did so well without (he's 14 years old now and an amazingly well behaved guy) that I thought I could do the same with Diesel. But, Diesel is a whole other story. So we got baby and dog gates to gate in our kitchen when we first adopted him (many weeks ago). That way any accidents happen on tile. We figured that would be a good alternative to crate training and over the past several weeks it has gone fairly well. Potty training is slower but it is working. The problem is that yesterday while I was at work he figured out that he is now strong enough to bull doze through the gates and knock them down. Yup he had full range of the house yesterday. The good news is that he still only went potty in the kitchen. The bad news is that he discovered a favorite new toy... Toilet paper! Well the damage could have been worse. So now we are starting to slowly introduce the crate. He is not so happy about this. We did dinner in the crate (with door open) last night and put his bed in the crate for the night (with door open again). It was a decent start as these things go but he just isn't thrilled with the whole idea as of yet.



I know that we need to start off slowly and make it a happy place with special treats and food and toys etc. We shut him in it for about ten minutes yesterday and tried to make it happy but no amount of special treats, toys etc made any difference. He refused to even acknowledge any of that. Oh well it was just the first time so i suppose it will get better. Anyone have any secret advice? Or is it (as I suspect) just a matter of hanging in there and keeping at it?

A little late to the party - 14 1/2 weeks old and just starting crate training