The 2025 National Dog Show will feature 1,994 dogs representing 201 breeds at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania, and will air on Thanksgiving Day. 12000 Attend A Historic National Dog Show In Oaks – Patch

Hosted by the Kennel Club of Philadelphia and sanctioned by the American Kennel Club, the event brings one of the country’s longest-running conformation competitions to the Expo Center, with a two-hour broadcast on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, beginning at 12 p.m. ET.

Competitors will gather under the familiar canopy of what organizers describe as “America’s most prominent and widely-viewed showcase for the sport,” offering judges and viewers a compressed look at hundreds of breeds judged against their official standards. Historically, dog breed popularity in the U.S. has shifted, moving from sporting and working breeds to current favorites like the French Bulldog, reflecting changing consumer preferences.

The Kennel Club of Philadelphia stages the in-person competition at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania, where handlers present dogs in a sequence of breed, group and final rounds. Dog owners ensure their breeds are represented at shows like the National Dog Show by registering their purebred dogs with the American Kennel Club (AKC), as only AKC-recognized breeds that meet eligibility criteria can compete.

January 1, 2025 appears on the season’s calendar as the date the Danish-Swedish Farmdog received formal recognition, a milestone that figures into the broader list of breeds associated with this year’s counts.

Organizers and broadcasters condense the live multi-ring weekend into a curated two-hour presentation timed for Thanksgiving Day audiences. The format traditionally highlights group winners and the final Best in Show round while offering features on notable breeds and backstage activity — the latter often described as the backstage canine energy that accompanies one of the country’s oldest and best-known dog shows. At these competitions, judges evaluate dogs against detailed breed standards, ensuring a fair and consistent judging process.

For handlers and breeders, the National Dog Show’s placement on the calendar makes it both a competitive target and a showcase: competing dogs are presented to judges who assess how closely each animal conforms to its breed’s standard in appearance, temperament and structure. The event’s scale — nearly 2,000 entries spanning more than 200 official breed categories — concentrates weeks of judging and preparation into a single televised package.

The Expo Center in Oaks has hosted the event footprint in recent years; local reporting on the venue and community impact is available through regional outlets. The American Kennel Club provides the registry framework that determines which purebred dogs are eligible to enter and compete.

Where the live weekend produces dozens of group champions and finalists, the Thanksgiving broadcast distills the competition into an accessible segment for a national audience, timed to follow other holiday programming and reach viewers who tune in for the tradition.

As the 2025 season progresses, the Kennel Club of Philadelphia will publish official results and group standings from the competition weekend at the Expo Center. The broadcast airing on Nov. 27 will present highlights and the event’s culminating rounds in a two-hour package beginning at 12 p.m. ET.

Source

Original reporting: view the original article.