My seven year old yellow lab, Koby had a THR on his Left side in July. I unfortunately do not have a success story for you. Despite our careful after care, Koby got a major infection, and had to have two follow up surgeries. The Board Certified Surgeon we chose has only had 2 other infections in his 20 years of practice, so we really hit some bad luck. The last 3 months has been stressful. His recovery from the first surgery was off from the beginning. We could tell because he wouldn't put weight on his leg. This week Koby is going in for his third surgery to remove the whole prosthesis and go complete an FHO. The poor guy doesn't deserve all this :(
I dont' want to scare you, but I want to let others now that infection can happen to any dog. We did not expect this at all. I wish you the very best in your decision.
Some people rave about the THR. When we were going through the decision process, everyone said you have to do it, your dog will be so happy afterwords. In 90% of the cases this is true. Poor Koby is the 10% that it just didn't happen for.
God Bless and good luck!