Q: We are moving to Japan for three years as my husband has gotten a transfer to a company in Tokyo. We have two dogs and an African grey parrot. All three animals are members of our family, and we want to take them with us. We need information on what to do to bring them along.

A: I have sent people’s pets to 37 countries, and it is only hard to do when you rush the situation or try to do it without knowing the facts. You can’t cut corners on the time or documents requested. Island countries like Japan have very strict rules on animals entering from parts of the world where rabies exists, so you need to respect that and follow requirements to the letter.

First, have your vet go to the website of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (usda.gov) and download and print out the appropriate health certificates and requirements to allow a dog or bird to travel from the United States to Japan.

After the requirements are met, the completed documents your vet filled out are presented to the USDA office at JFK Airport to be endorsed. That’s it for the dogs. But you are only halfway there for the bird. Since grey parrots live wild in certain parts of the world, you will need documentation, such as purchase invoices, that your bird was born and bred in the United States from parents that are of legal origin and in no way related to any current wild populations.

The government endorsement of this fact is called a CITES export permit. To get this, you need to present the documentation to the CITES office in Washington for review. The permit is the guarantee of the U.S. government to Japan that your bird is in no way part of any wild population of grey parrots and is OK to travel from one country to the next as a personal pet.

This permit takes about two months to get. Learn more by calling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office at 703-358-2104. After you have all the documents in hand, the only step left is to get the CITES permit and parrot inspected by the local inspection office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at JFK Airport.

Although this sounds like a lot of work, it can be accomplished if you allow enough time and answer all the questions asked by both regulatory agencies.