I just tried 150 times at 30 animal lore (real skill) on my own bonded automaton. I keep getting the message "At your skill level, you can only lore tamed or tamable creatures". If i lore a regular bonded pet, I do get the info gump in a few attempts.
I think the problem is that the bonded automaton is in reality a tamed pet, but the system treats it as a tamable creature. Does this mean i need to get 100 or even 120 animal lore on my tinker? Unfortunately, my tamer is on the same account, meaning I can't lore the automaton as it gets auto-stabled when I log out with my tinker.