Minor Panic Over Date Format

Ok, so I went to our state's APHIS vet today to get the EC998 endorsed. The woman looked over the docs attached to each form (we have 2 cats) and then walked away with them, leaving me in the lobby. I didn't have the chance to explain the whole date format issue. When she came back to get my payment, I explained how they date things differently there, and she said it was too late they had already dated them.

They used a stamp to date the form (it's not handwritten). It is in this format: JUL 12 2011. Is this going to pose an issue with DEFRA?!? I'm feeling very anxious that this won't be acceptable, I will have wasted 2 hours driving there, $228 ($114 for each form) and that our kitties will be thrown in quarantine! I hope you can alleviate my concerns! 

You are over thinking this. The format problem might arise with all figures, e.g. 06-07-2011 could either be read as 6th July 2011 or 7th June 2011 but I'm fairly sure the people at DEFRA know what "JUL" means. The date format issue does not apply to dates with the month name (or an abbreviation) in words - 12 JUL 2011 and JUL 12 2011 are both acceptable in the UK.

My state's USDA vet also stamped the form with that date format. It was fine. The concern, as Tremula said, is that the date be clearly understood, which JUL 12 2011 is.

Just echoing what the others have said:

JUL 12th 2011 will be recognised by both US and UK officials as July 12th 2011, so it won't be an issue.

However, if the date was written as 07/12/2011, that would be interpreted in the US as July 12th 2011, but in the UK as December 7th 2011 - which is where you might have had a problem had the date been written in number format only.

The whole date format "difference" issue only applies to dates written all in numbers  and ambiguity will only arise if the day number is 12 or less. In written UK English, you can have 1st January or January 1st or 1 Jan or JAN 01 or whatever.

I figured it would be understood at July 12, but I wasn't sure just how anal DEFRA peeps could be about the whole data format. Very glad it won't pose an issue.

Now, another question, the vet put a raised stamp/seal on all 3 pages of the EC998. Is that the norm? I guess it doesn't matter as long as the one page where he/she needs to sign has the seal right?