Welcome to the group! You will love it here! We do... I am Adrienne and Titan is my 11 month old English Mastiff!
Also you have to promise to post some picts soon WE would love to see you new addition!
As for the crating... Titan just got out of crate when he was about 10 months old.
The only thing I can reccommend is to make it as positive as possible. We would leave Titan for 5 mins and when he stopped whinning we would pop back into the room...the time increments just went up from there. When we went to let him out it was with lots of praise and treats so the he would recognize being in there is not like jail it a postive experiance. After a couple of weeks we would tell him to go to bed and he would waltz right in there and lay down! He knew the sooner he got in there the sooner we would be over to say good boy and give him a treat and then close the door.
And then when we let him out it was with more praise and treats!
Good luck and keep us posted on he's doing!