Pup is amazing at sleeping in crate, terrible in pen if we leave the room.

To preface: 5 month old Bernedoodle, he’s doing really well, sleeps through the night in the crate, is doing really well with toileting outside, has learned a lot of commands and is getting a small bit better at settling outside of the crate with us, other than being a land shark, I’d say he’s making amazing progress. The one thing we’re really struggling with though is leaving him alone in the pen, leaving the room and it’s just instant bark or whine, if we leave him he does settle very briefly but it goes back to whining. I have seen tips of starting slow a second at a time, but progress just doesn’t seem to happen, and we’ve tried repeatedly.

Anything we’re really missing? I thought taking him for good walks would tire him but they don’t help 😂. It’s hard to be annoyed as he’s a really good dog, we just want to help him get past this.