A new puppy and a new kitten two days apart - we must be crazy! Question...

Thanks for all of your comments! Momofkids, I have noticed that she needs to go potty after every time she wakes up, so we are trying to do that. Your other two suggestions make perfect sense. I know that eating triggers the reflex to move the bowels, and moving around being active helps get it moving.

I also like the suggestion about how to train the kitten. We never had to do that before, but I can see how that would work well.

After a week and a half, the cat seems to be pretty much litter box trained. It's getting better with the dog. I think she's had only two accidents in the house today (which may not qualify as accidents, since she urinated outside but saved the BM until right after we came in). What makes it hard is that she has diarrhea, so much harder to clean up. We took a stool sample to the vet and they suspect that it will come back with giardia or coccidia, so she'll probably get some medicine. She's already had the de-worming, so it can't be that.

We didn't like the idea of crate training at first, but after cleaning up so many diarrhea messes on the rug that I've lost count, I'm seeing the logic. We bought a giant plastic portable kennel with a door, and put in a cushy mat for her with memory foam. She seems to like it. We're only putting her in there at night so far, because there's almost always someone home.

We're starting obedience training classes Sunday. I did put the dog in the crate because she kept biting my son while playing, and I wanted to get the message across. She's going to be big (a lab), so we have to get that under control.

Thanks for all the great ideas!