Our Founders:
Terry Kovick Biskovich
Founder Terry is a 30 year resident of Antigua. She has been rescuing animals all that time, and in 2010 joined forces with fellow-rescuer Linda and formed Unidos para los Animales.
Terry and her husband John built our facility and generously donate space on their beautiful mountain property for the rehabilitation center, as well as their caretakers for maintenance and security. Terry takes care of all the cats in the Kitty Garden as well as various cats who live in her home. She and John also care for the ‘porchies’, our senior dogs who live with them in their home and beautiful separate garden. Terry is the editor of, and she and John also own and publish the Revue Magazine (now online), a monthly English language news and event magazine. They share their home with Livia and Molly, both rescue dogs and several cats.
Linda Green
Founder Linda is a 28 year resident of Antigua. She is the acting director of Unidos, and coordinates training, mobile sterilization clinics, adoptions and the foster and volunteer program.
Working with Unidos has allowed Linda to merge her two main passions; teaching and animals. A retired elementary school teacher and director, in 2018 she graduated with honors from Jean Donaldson’s prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers with her CTC (Certificate in Training and Counseling). She is Fear Free certified and a proud member of the Pet Professional Guild. Linda oversees our training program, supports our foster families and our adopters with evidence-based and effective training plans, and also maintains our website and Facebook page.
Linda lives with her husband Guayo, rescue dogs Sally, Panda and Cashew, and a cat named Jack in addition to a regular foster dog or two.
Our Staffers:
Edgar Ronaldo Aspuac Zamora
Ronaldo was our first staffer and has worked full time for us since 2011. He has cared for and trained with every dog that we have brought into our rehabilitation center. He also cares for the cats. Ronaldo is the core of our care team on the mountain. He loves training, walks miles and miles every day with our dogs, and he also gravitates to the medical side of animal care, so he oversees vaccinations, blood draws, heart worm testing and more. He often assists at our mobile clinics. Ronaldo has a quiet calmness, gentleness and patience with the animals and they all gravitate to him. As our first and longest term employee, Ronaldo has grown with us through many changes and has learned alongside us. Ronaldo is a lawyer by degree and an animal advocate by heart. We are very lucky that he has chosen to continue working with us. He lives in Pastores with his wife and young son and a rescue dog.
Phomolo Tshaka
Phomolo was born and raised in South Africa. She is a world traveler, and lived and worked in many countries before making her way to us in Guatemala. Phomolo is a teacher by profession, and since 2018 she has been a full time staffer and a valued member of the care and training team at our center. Like most teachers, she is a life-long learner and has eagerly embraced the theory of positive reinforcement based dog training. She has completed her Fear Free Shelter Certification, as well as courses in Dog Cognition and evidence-based positive reinforcement behavior modification. Phomolo puts theory into practice daily when training the dogs at our center. Her gentle touch and patience with the dogs has brought many fearful pups around, and her intelligence and curiosity to learn more about animal behavior make her a wonderful student. Both we and our dogs are very lucky to have her on our Antigua team.
Livia Gerber
Livia is our newest staffer. She volunteered with us over several visits to Guatemala and we were lucky enough to hire her when she decided to move to Guatemala from Switzerland in November of 2019. Livia wears many hats with UPA and she wears them well. She assists our treasurer Keri with accounting and and administrative duties and assists our director Linda with a thousand different tasks. She is a gifted photographer and takes stunning photographs of our animals. Livia maintains our Instagram and Facebook foster and volunteer accounts. She also works several days of the week at the center, training, walking and caring for the dogs and cats there. An avid trainer and student of all things animal, Livia recently completed her Fear Free Shelter Certificate, as well as courses in evidence based positive behavior modification. She wears many hats and lightens all our loads. We are grateful to have her on our team.
She lives in Antigua with her partner Juan Carlos and her sweet rescue dog Bonnie.
Our Team:
Keri Peyton
Keri is an 11 year resident of Antigua. She is a talented editor and works for several local businesses. She was a key volunteer for us after rescuing her first dog, Mr. Bones, a blind senior Labrador Retriever who she brought back from the brink of death. Keri took over our accounting, newsletter and donor support in 2018 and also co-leads our Saturday Student Volunteer program, amongst other myriad tasks. She works tirelessly behind the scenes in too many areas to list. She is also a dog training addict and soaks up information and techniques, and is a gifted trainer as well. She shares her home with Mr. Bones, and three more rescue dogs; Clementine, Arrow and Fletcher.