My little one Abbie had the surgery @ 8 months of age. From what I read and was told by my vet and her orthopedist was that the longer we waited to more painful it would be for Abbie to recover and that just was not fair to her. She came through the surgery great, I think that it was much harder on us then her
Now she is almost a year removed from the procedure and uses the hip and runs and jumps with the best of them. You could hardly tell that there was ever a problem. In retrospect the most frightening thing about that whole ordeal was the bill, about $3000 (thank god for pet insurance and her breader!)