I am a newbie, just so you are warned!
We crate trained a stray for 3 weeks until we found a home for her and now we have been crate training Penny for about 3 weeks too.
You want to have a crate that is just big enough for them to turn around and lay down. If they have too much room in there, they will feel comfortable doing "business" because they can still get away from it and lay down.
To get them used to the crate, throw a favorite treat in there for them to eat a few times a day. Also, put their food bowl in there when you feed him. Put it way at the back of the crate so he has to go all the way inside to eat.
After a day or two of all this, then you can close the door on him when he goes in to eat.
Do NOT open the door when he whines. Only open the door when he is quiet. Some people throw a treat in as soon as they are not making noise, so that the dog is eating the treat when they open the door for them to come out.
Now that I have written all of the above, I have to confess that we did all of this in one day for both dogs because they HAD to sleep in the cage the first night we brought them home.
Both dogs acted like we were harming them for about 15 minutes, but got over it. After being locked up off and on all day long, it wasn't such a surprise when we shut the door at night after throwing in a treat.
Penny grabbed the bars on the kennel the first 3 nights and pulled on the door for about 15 - 20 minutes frantically. It was soooo pitiful that we almost gave in. Now she goes in the crate during the day to nap and could care less that we shut the door at night.
