Crate Training from Scratch
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We adopted a 15 week old puppy about a month ago, from a local hobby farm that had an accidental litter. The father was a neighbourhood dog that wandered over, so we're not sure his exact lineage, but he's largely a border collie and lab mix. The hobby farm only had farm dogs, so he spent a lot of his first months outside or in a heated garage with his littermates.
He's such a sweetheart and a fast learner, and has become a bit of a velcro dog. Our initial goal was to crate train him (our last dog was crate trained from 8 weeks), but we didn't focus enough on it in his first weeks home.
I have an office that's on our property, so he comes to work with me most days. But I wanted to ensure that we gave him alone time every day so that he wouldn't develop severe separation anxiety. He doesn't love the crate so we tried a lot of positive re-enforcements (we feed meals in there, high value treats, etc), but ended up puppy proofing the bedroom and let him stay in there with a dog camera. He is never in there for more than an hour or two, and we've put him in the room a few times when we're home as well, for when he needs to settle. We've tried the crate with the door closed twice, but each time it's made him more averse to getting in again.
However, lately he's been figuring it out that when I bring a treat in the room, I'm going to close the door. We have the crate in there too, with the door open, but he never elects to use it.
Today he didn't want to go in, but I had to leave, so I picked him up and put him in the room. I closed the door, but I stayed inside so that it wouldn't seem like door closed=abandonment. I laid on the bed with him but almost immediately he stood up and peed on the bed. We had just been outside for a good walk before this, so I know it wasn't out of necessity.
Any advice? I'm afraid we didn't approach the crate properly in the first place and I don't know how to backtrack. Eventually he'll be able to free roam the house, but for now he needs to be contained for safety.
Our last dog was 12 years old when he passed, so it's been a long time since I've had a puppy!