We recently brought our dog from SFO to LHR and BA told us we could only book it two weeks before the flight, but then it turned out they want3ed 48 hours to let us know whether she had a place or not - and the answer was that they did not and could we suggest a different date. Our tickets were already booked and so changing dates was not very practical ... and they seemed to want another 48 hours to decide on our alternatives.

Instead we called Virgin and booked her over the phone on a similarly timed flight on the day we needed - the fare went from $1600 to $2400 mind you. The folks at Virgin were fantastic though (I suspect the BA folks would have been too, but the booking system seemed like it was 40 years out of date). Virgin have a pre-check system for the paperwork, and we were able to submit all our paperwork two days before the flight and received confirmation that it was all OK before we took her to the airport. At the airport they kept her in the cargo office until flight loading time rather than placing her with other cargo.

At Heathrow the people at the ARC (Animal Reception Centre) were amazing and we had her ready to go in only about 2 hours from landing - and she had absolutely no ill effects from the traumatic experience – apart from the shock of endless days of rain in the UK compared with California.

Flying your pets into Heathrow is the way to go - fly them as cargo not checked baggage and they'll have a better, safer journey.

And good luck - the stressful bit was the paperwork - the USDA vet in Sacramento refused our first attempt and we had to take a three week delay.