The judges

Michel Liekens

I was born in 1954. I am married to Emmy Torfs and we have a son, Nico.

My first contact with agility was in 1990 at our club "De Aarschotse Hondenvrienden". I ran my first competition in 1991 with our female Tervuren, Oshin. Together we have had a lot of fun, running agility and we attain the 3rd level (highest level in Belgium). The "agility bug" infected me so that I even gave up playing football (or maybe it was my age that had something to do with it). My wife has got the same "disease" and it was then that the Pyrenean Shepherd Ursa (female) has joined our family. With this dog my wife started to compete in agility, only for a short period as Ursa had bad knees and could no longer participate to competitions. I am still member of "De Aarschotse Hondenvrienden" and for several years now I organise our yearly competition and an agility weekend every two years.

I became agility instructor and till today I "teach" agility at our club. Meanwhile Oshin grew older and in 1999 we decided to expand the family with another Tervuren, Yentl (male). I trained him and when he was at the age that he was allowed to participate to competitions he became my new "team mate". 1999 was also the year I became agility judge. In 2000 I became FCI international judge. Since then I judge about sixty agility competitions a year, most of them in Belgium but also several in different European countries.

It has become clear to me that I've had to make a choice running agility or judging it. I have decided to give priority to judging and nowadays I run with Yentl about 2 or 3 competitions a year. Fortunately my wife has offered to run with Yentl and meanwhile they have reached the 3rd level. Emmy also runs competitions in 2nd level with Chivas a male Jack Russell of a friend. At home "the troops" have had reinforcement of a female Pyrenean shepherd, Alyne, who has started training since mid August 2006. Furthermore I am deputy secretary of the Belgian agility committee and I am also member of the committee that appoints the judges in Belgium.

To me agility has become a hobby that has taken a very big part of my life. I enjoy very much judging agility. I admire the dogs and their handlers who run beautiful rounds, with or without faults, sometimes it even gives me goose pimples.

Michel Liekens

Yngve Sommer

Yngve Sommer - FCI Judge WC 2007 A short presentation

Name: Yngve Sommer Age: 43 Adress: Nykirke, Norway (100 km south of the capitol, Oslo) .

I live in an old renovated house in the countryside with my wife Eirin, and our two kids; Andrine (4) and Henrik (3). The past 10 years we have spent a lot of time to create a nice place to live for us and all our animals. We love animals, and therefore we have company of our Tervueren Lulu, two Frisian horses, a cat, a lot of tropical birds, some hens and a rooster, and finally some aquarium fishes.

For many years agility has been our main hobby, and my wife and I have been competing in agility since around 1990. Now we are also spending some time driving and riding our horses.

I got my first dog in 1989, a Swedish Lapphound. He was not a typical agility dog, but together we achieved a lot in the nineties. In 1995 we won the Norwegian Championship in 1995, and also became the "Agility dog of the year". We were a member at the National Team from 1994 until 1998, and have represented Norway in several European and Nordic championships those five years. My wife was also on the National Team from 1995 until 1999, and together we have shared the interest for agility and have got many agility friends during all these years.

During competing agility, we were also many trips on our own around Europe with our dogs. My second dog was a Pyrenean Shepherd. He had all that takes to be a good agility dog, and we had some fun years together. My wife had three Tervuerens that she competed with, and at the most we had five dogs together. But life goes on and dogs are getting older faster than us people. So now we only have our Tervueren bitch Lulu. She is three years old, and are primary a show dog yet.

Lack of time is the reason we have not been able to train her in agility and obedience as much as we would like to. Other priorities the last years such as getting two small kids, two new horses and rebuilding our house is mostly the reason. My contact with agility the last few years has therefore been through judging. I was educated as FCI Judge in 1998, and have been judging frequently since then. I have been judging primary in the Scandinavian countries, both small and large competitions. I was also judging the Norwegian Championship in 2005.

One of the best things being a judge, is to see my courses being solved just the way I planed it. It is beautiful and nice to see good handling and a perfect team work between handler and the dog, and to see them find the perfect line in the course. Then it is fun for the equipage and fun for the audience to watch. But even if things not always are going as planned, I hope that everybody can enjoy the sport and have fun anyway… And maybe things are going better next time !!

I am looking forward to meet many enthusiastic agility people this year, and I wish you all good luck along the way practicing this nice sport.

Yngve Sommer

Nina Rødsjø

Updated: 22.09.2007 13:06 by Jon G Olsen