Ola is perfectly comfortable with his “keeping things safe for him” and “preventing him from developing bad habits” room, but so far not with the door closed.
For now, when I know he is tired and ready to sleep, I put him inside with the door closed.
He has taken to the big drama of crying and moving around, but since I do NOT want to reinforce this behavior unintentionally, I know my husband and I must not look, talk or react in anyway to this “drama.”
When he is quiet and calm, if only for a second, that is when we praise and let him out.
At this stage in his training, I am sleeping on a “bed topper” with my head right in front of his opened door crate-condo.
He stays in with gentle nudges back in and he can alert me to when he needs to go out to shi-shi (pee).
So far he is averaging 3 trips out a night to relieve himself on the grass.
After this quick outing, he is carried right back into his crate-condo so he can adjust to our schedule.