DEFRA - making things difficult

Travelling from USA to UK with pets, the only option is to take them in cargo. Both our pets seemed to have had an OK flight - we had ice-water in their dishes and kept checking-up with Virgin that they were loaded / unloaded and that the pressurised hold for live animals was ok temp/pressure.

DEFRA was another story...
We had spent months checking their website, and making sure we had all the correct paperwork for both pets from USDA, DEFRA and Virgin Atlantic.
We were pretty sure we had everything in order, but on one form we had used the American date system mm/dd/yy and because it was a British form, using the same pen, we had corrected it to the British date dd/mm/yy (incidentally, we had written the same information on two other similar forms using the British date system). Also, another (duplicate) piece of paperwork had a round stamp from USDA, but apparently needed a "star" stamp from USDA. These two errors meant we couldn't see the animals, and had a nerve-wracking five-hour wait at Heathrow and had to pay an extra £130.
Virgin Atlantic Cargo generally try to distance themselves from the DEFRA process, saying they thought it was "all on DEFRA's website" (which it wasn't) and that DEFRA had advised them not to give people detailed advice on the UK paperwork required.
My advice... stick with one date-system throughout and make sure your USDA vet is really familiar with the finer points of British bureaucracy.

However, all's well that ends well - the pets were well looked after by the Animal Reception Centre and we were very relieved that they didn't have to go into quarantine.