Ohhh she's so adorable! Welcome to pet talk!

I think you're heading the right track. Definitely try making it a good place for her to be in. When Kai was being crate trained, we let him go in and out while we were around but when we weren't home, we'd leave him in his crate with food, water and dog safe toys.

I think I see Collie/Shepherd? She does look like a sheltie/gsd..but a gsd mounting a sheltie or vice versa is hard to picture lol.