Gentlemen, a very interesting thread indeed and as it seems congratulations are in order to Rod.
I found the 2 sites below of interest and thought I would share them as they provide some useful information, the first has a nice reperesentation of the position of the Pup in relation to Sirius over a 50 year period. It is also interesting to note how the authors sought and received an opinion from the USNO in relation to their 2002 image.
PeterM.
http://www.integram.com/astro/Sirius.html
http://scott-logan.org/SkyWatch.php?ArticleID=221