Companions are really bad on Guerilla difficulty

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

I read somewhere that you're supposed to let your animal companions get kills to level up or whatever, but on Guerrilla they're struggling to kill even the most basic enemy soldiers...How am I supposed to level them up if they can't even kill?

[SteahmChip]

If you place a couple of pills in the enemy (not kill'em, just knock off health), and the companion pet finishes them, will it count as a kill for them?