those alumimum crates sure are cool, I wound up taking out the back seat(4 door truck) and putting in wood platform with wire sides, best I could do to haul over 400 lbs of dog around

We got an extra large crate (Remington) from Tractor Supply for our 90 pound 16 month old. He is built very much like you describe.

Rocky had not been in a crate since he was about 4 months old and I had 2 days to get him acclimated to it before our trip. I just left it open and would throw treats in throughout the first day...he would go in and eat them and walk back out. No stress.

The second day I brought it in our very crowded house and put treats in it and when he went in I told him to sit, he did and I started to close the door, he started stressing, so I just had him sit in the crate, then I let him out (on my command). I put more treats in and he went back in and we repeated the above 2 times. The next time, I was able to close the door and left him in there for about 10 minutes. I let him out on my command and let him outside.

Later that day we did the above and he stayed in for about an hour with no stress. We left on our trip and he loved being in the crate. He seemed to look forward to it.

At this point, he willingly goes in his crate and sleeps at night. He sits and stays until I let him out...I put his collar on him while he is still in the crate and he sits quietly for me to do that. He doesn't come out until I tell him too...he has learned the word "crate" just like he learned to understand "place".