[He would be right. And he will forever be "the kid", much in the same way that every once in a while Coop is still "the kid" in Albert's eyes, still the freshly-minted agent from all those years ago who had to slick back his hair before anyone would take him seriously.]

Artificial advantages. Every idiot who shows up here can flip open their tricorder and get a full listing of every creature in this place, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they're capable of. Any crook worth his salt will have read the thing cover to cover. That means our advantages are going to have to be ones that don't get listed in there.

That stuff that Thing blasted Gandhina with a few months back — I think I can come up with a way to neutralize it before it sinks in. Whatever's the active agent in those poison-curing berries, it's not particularized to a specific type of poison — it's a general cure-all. My guess is, you isolate that and figure out a way to apply it externally, and you've got yourself a pooch that can't be hit with any poison you throw at her.