We have a new pet as of November of last year and I named him Theo. He was born September 2, 2023 and he is a pure bread AKC Golden Retriever given to me by my daughter Angela. In fact, he was the last one born and was the runt of the littler.

First a little back story: Angela's female Golden had puppies (five males, two females) and she wanted to know if I would like one. You know...with being retired and all she thought this would be a good fit. Now I initially told her no, but then she called me again when people were starting to come over and look at them. At the seven week mark she asked one more time if I wanted one. Well, this got me thinking because it would be really cool to have a dog that would hangout with me in the garage and just to have fun with again.

You see, I had a female Golden Retriever back in the early 90's and her name was KD (Kevin's Dog) but pronounced Katie. She was super smart, I could teach her just about anything and she would do it. Once she passed away 13 years later I've missed her terribly, but life goes on.

Anyways, having another dog had been on my mind ever since she mentioned it, but this time I told her that if the one she had picked out for me was still available (she initially named him Ben) then I knew God wanted me to have him. And sure enough he wasn't picked by anyone so that meant I was getting another dog. BTW, Theo means "Gods Gift".
 

With all that being said, I really don't have a very good yard for a dog because it has all kinds of smaller rocks in a large water feature, lots of plants throughout the yard with rubber bark in all the planters along with various other things for an animal to get into that's not good for them. However, one of the things I didn't want Theo to dig up or bite into or tear up was my sprinkler valves on the side of the yard. That brings me to what this project is all about, building something that will go around my six sprinkler valves that will keep Theo from damaging them. In this picture he's five months old, however, he's almost six months old now and has some big paws to fill to be like my old one.
 

Here is the side yard that my sprinkler valves reside, which are behind that portable white fence. I plan on putting plaster sand, (which is like wash sand) over here so he can do his business in place of going in the grass where it is dying from his pee. This area is pretty much useless because it's only 40" wide but it's 32 feet long, which should work great for a bathroom.
 

What you see below is 3/8" diameter mild steel round bar that I'll be making the cage out of. I bought five 20 foot lengths and had them cut in half to bring them home.
 

After cutting two pieces to length, I was ready to start bending them. These two pieces will be bent into a U shape and will become the frame if you will. Once I had the points marked on my round bar, I used my milling machine table to clamp them down with. I've done this type of bending many times on here because of how solid the setup is. The 3/4" galvanized pipe is for leverage while bending.