My boyfriend and I decided to film Finley when we left the house for an hour so we could see how she is in the crate when we're gone (trying to make sure our neighbors arent disturbed), we found that for the first 10-15 minutes she yelled, circled around and paced and was digging nonstop. eventually she settled down and slept but I was wondering if anyone else has dealt with this? We are planning on getting her a larger size crate so she will have more room since she's outgrown the one she has but other than that I don't know how to make her more comfortable in there. I typically leave her with some toys if we'll be gone a while but I'm not sure if she even plays with them. Any advise is appreciated!

Crates should generally be smaller than you think they should be. Digging, yelping etc is pretty normal until they get used to being in the crate.

My big male would dig at the crate some when he would first go in. Mostly to see if he could dig out or break the bottom of the crate and when it still didn't relent he would give up and settle down. He eventually stopped digging at the crate altogether as he became more accustomed to it. For the most part they only need room enough to stand, turn, and lay down. Most of our dogs don't play with toys and would rather sleep so I would probably forgo the toys in the crate. Just something to take up more room and instead maybe give her a bully stick to chew on when she first goes in.

She’s a little over a year so i thought she was used to the crate since we’ve crate trained her from day 1! But I’ve just noticed that when she stands in it her ears poke out of the top so i think a new one would be good. I’ll have to try the bully stick idea