Hello all,
We recently got a husky at 8 weeks and immediately put him on a feeding schedule and started crate training him. Topher has made lots of progress with housebreaking since we got him (some accidents here and there but that's to be expected) and we make sure he gets plenty of exercise during the day. He is fed 3x a day, at 8AM, 12NN and last feed at 5:30PM. No water after 6. No naps 2-3 hours before bedtime. Playtime for at least an hour before bed to tire him out. Then We usually take him out for a last poo and a pee around 9 or 10 and bedtime is at 10 or 11. After the first couple weeks, he was sleeping through the night until 6 or 7 in the morning and never showed any anxiety in his crate. Note: we do not keep the crate in our bedroom, it is outside in the living room and we have never kept the crate in the bedroom or made the puppy sleep with us at night. He never showed any signs of separation anxiety or neediness and slept just fine on his own.

For some reason in the last 2 weeks he has decided he absolutely HATES his crate and will not ever go in out of his own volition during the day or before bedtime (unless he is extremely tuckered out and barely notices when we put him in there). He has also peed a few times in his crate since then; we know he is capable of holding it longer so I feel he pees more out of anxiety. He has also stopped sleeping through the night; he will sleep at 10 or 11, start barking and whining at 2:30 so I get up and make him go potty and go back inside his crate. He cries for 15 mins before going back to sleep, then will wake up again at 4AM, and then again at 6AM. He cries every time he is put back in his crate. We usually take him out every time he cries as I don't want him to have any accidents in his crate. I'm worried we're going backwards somehow in our training with him and would like to know if we should start ignoring his cries at night (does he really need to go potty that often at night?) and if there's anything we can do to alleviate his stress in his crate? Has he suddenly developed SA and needs us around at night? I don't want to encourage him thinking that he can cry at night to get us out of bed and get out of his crate unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. We've never had to put treats or anything to entice him into his crate as he started out just fine with it, but now that he hates his crate we have started giving him treats and toys whenever he is put in there. I feel however that it is not helping with his stress. Any suggestions would be most appreciated!!

I should add that he has a separate crate in our car which he is in often as he goes with my boyfriend to work everyday and takes lots of car rides. He has no problems whatsoever being in that crate and can sit/sleep there quietly for hours on end. The crate we have in our living room is another story! We have tried bringing the crate from the car in to see if he preferred that but no luck, he still cried like the world was ending in it.