I can only speak from experience, I always put a pad of some sort in there for her to sleep on but I was careful not to let her stay in the crate long enough so she had to pee in there (it happened but only few times). We had a routine, the minute she came out of the crate she went outside to go to the bathroom immediately (in fact I never let her feet hit the ground).
When she did go outside we would have a huge celebration with special "potty treats" and lots of cheering. It took some time but she eventually got the hint and now she is almost fully trained. The problem I have with Sophie is she does not tell me when she has to go out so we keep a pretty tight schedule of no longer then 4 hours during the day. At night she holds it up to 7 hours but again, the first thing in the morning she goes outside.
When she did have an accident in the crate I would always wash her pad right away and make sure the crate and pad was clean and dry.
Not sure about the advice of no pad, maybe others can give feedback also.
__________________ Cheryl,Mom to  SophieKate |