Giving a big doggie grin for the camera is CH Pitlochry’s Quintus or Quintus for short.
Staff photo by Lindsay Banecker

Families comes in all shapes and sizes -- tall, short, lean, black hair, brown hair, gray hair -- giving big smiles and wet kisses -- all just because you’re around. But not all stand on two legs. Or groom themselves. Or like to compete in competitions with you walking them around a ring.

But for some, this is a great way to spend a weekend showing off a lifelong devotion between family members. And the American Kennel Club offers the opportunity.

This year, the AKC is bringing its national dog show to Philadelphia through the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. The show, broadcast on NBC on Thanksgiving Day, is the most watched dog show in the country according to the AKC, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Big and small, both in size and personality, dogs from across Chester County will be competing at the event which will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The event in Philadelphia is a bench show, meaning the competitors are required to be at the event all day. In other shows, competitors can arrive, compete and leave.

On the larger side, are Irish Wolfhounds, which compete in the hound group. “These guys are real rough (have coarse fur) and ready to go,” said Amy Benjamin, who with her husband, Doug Marx, breed, raise and show the dogs on 12 acres in Franklin. “They’re real basic, not like a poodle,” she said. Marx added, “They have no odor so they smell like where they sleep.”

“I like to show,” Marx said, adding that the bench shows are “a good educational experience” because spectators can walk around and learn about each breed.

Irish Wolfhounds “were bred to be swift enough to catch a wolf and strong enough to kill it,” Marx said.

And they are big ... very big ... and very strong. Males average around 34 inches tall (height is measured at the top of the shoulders) and weigh between 140 and 180 pounds, females are slightly smaller, around 32-inches tall and 115 to 140 pounds. Valor, a 2½-year-old male that Marx is showing at the show in Philadelphia, tips the scale to around 160 pounds.

But they don’t eat as much as you’d think, according to Benjamin and Marx. “You have to watch their weight. ... They need to be fit,” Marx said, adding that among their 17 dogs, they only go through 200 pounds of dog food a week.