<_>
Oh, yeah…if it just takes a chew treat...that is a piece of cake, absolutely I would leave a dog in his crate to fuss a little if he could calm down and chew a treat. But what we are talking about (I think) and the road it can go down, is a dog that screams hysterically for HOURS...is too upset to chew, or eat, or anything else in a crate. That is where my boy was, and it sounds like Lisa's boy Nicky was there as well. By forcing *that dog to work it out on his own, it simply "sensitizes" him to a crate, instead of "desensitizing" which is what you want.
As you stated, there usually isn't one *right answer for every dog...but those of us who have seen how *bad it can get, try to keep a puppy from even starting down that road of crate phobia.
Strangely, I found with my females, that they *rarely cried in their crates as pups...even the two that flew from Seattle to Ohio...but they always had each other. They were crated next to another dog immediately, and I think that makes a HUGE difference._