Finally cracked crate training after 4 months of failure - here's what actually worked

We got our rescue Poppy in January. She's a 2-year-old shepherd mix and she came to us with what we were told was "mild separation anxiety." Mild was maybe not the right word. The crate was an absolute disaster for the first few months - screaming, pawing, drooling, the whole show. i tried every tip i read online and nothing worked. I was starting to think she was just going to be a never-crate-trained dog and honestly i was accepting that.

What finally worked, after nothing else did: I completely stopped trying to close the door. For three weeks. I just left the crate open in the living room with her meals inside and her favorite blanket in there and completely ignored it as a thing. No coaxing, no treats at the door, nothing. By week two she was choosing to nap in it on her own. At that point i started very casually - like absurdly casually - occasionally pushing the door most-of-the-way closed while she ate and immediately opening it. That stretched to closed-for-5-seconds, then 10, over many weeks.

She's now at 45 minutes closed crate no problem. Not where i want to be yet but compared to month one this is unreal. The thing that i think made the difference was just completely removing my anxiety and desperation from the equation. She was picking up on how much i NEEDED her to be okay with the crate and it was making it worse. Once i genuinely stopped caring about it she started exploring it herself.