“Smedley said she enjoys seeing Limpy whenever she visits Yellowstone, but she wishes he’d learn to survive only on his natural skills.“
I’d say that that’s exactly what he’s doing. The limp is probably phony. I had a German shepherd who turned a limp on and off all the time. The tell, besides the fact the the limp would come and go in the blink of an eye was the nose low sad face that was only there with the limp.
Here’s an article about how the intelligence of dogs can be expressed through training:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGlUZWNjxPA
The dog in the above article seems on a par with Alex, the grey parrot trained by Irene Pepperberg:
https://mymodernmet.com/alex-the-african-gray-parrot/
Nature is ‘wondrous strange’...