I feel your pain. Wes' dog is in heat and my dog (a boy) is a whiny, howling bitch right now. Not to mention he suddenly knows how to hike his leg and is an constant state of excitement.

I crate my dogs. We started doing the first night we brought them home. Luckily, we had a room on the other side of the house so if one howled, we could put them in time out so to say. You're gonna have to ignore the howling.

We had no problems with one dog. She came from a small litter and was the last to go. The other dog came from a large litter and nearly drove me nuckin' futs with his howling and scratching at the crate. Both dogs know their box. They know when they are in trouble to get into their box and at night when we lock up the front door, they both go to their respective boxes. When Wes gets up in the morning, he lets both dogs out of their crates to go outside. It only took a week to get them into this routine. You might want to give it a try again.