Well if you do get a job, you do need to have a work visa. You can't stay for long without one. Not sure how it all works because my job set that up. Regarding the dog, you need to look into that because it can be quite a process bringing an animal over, there is a required quarantine time and you should be sure the dog is healthy enough for the whole thing.
Regarding money, while your credit and debit cards will work over here most of the time, they do a chip and pin system in their cards and some places won't take anything that doesn't have that, but to be honest usually they will, but you have to tell them you are using a swipe card and that you don't have chip and pin. If you have Bank of America, they have a sister bank over here, called Barclays that won't charge you to withdraw money, though of course it will likely charge you exchange from dollars to whatever currency you are using. Right now the dollar is weak against both the British pound and the Euro. I'd suggest some sites like oanda.com for information on exchanges, etc and you might be able to work something out with your bank. You will need to tell them you are going to be over here or they may prevent you from using your cards.
As for hotness, well, UK girls are uh probably more like American girls in general, some are lovely, some are not. They do have larger breasts than the rest of europe on average apparently and they do like having naked chicks on page 6 of the Sun or something like that. I work with horndogs I swear... The UK is getting heavier in the same way the US is,
but again younger girls in their 20s are still pretty petite usually and dress like hookers so there's that. 
French women by and large are probably the prettiest, but one must not discount the Swedish ladies either. But if you are in a major city like London or Paris it's a big mix of cultures anyway.