Dogs of all ages able to follow human gaze: study

Dogs of all ages are able to follow human gaze but canines who have a high amount of formal training show a lower gaze following response, according to a new study.
Gaze following to distant space has been documented in many species such as primates, domesticated goats, several bird species, dolphins and wolves.
However, dogs are able to follow human gaze to objects such as food or toys, but not into distant space.
Two possible reasons have been offered to explain this phenomenon: One reason could be habituation. Dogs lose their innate gaze following response as they age, as they are frequently exposed to human gaze cues over their lifespan and slowly stop responding to them.

Another reason could be formal training such as obedience, agility, and trick training may interfere with the dogs' response to gaze cues, since dogs are usually trained to look at the owner, wait for commands and ignore distractions.
Lead author Lisa Wallis and her colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine - Vienna studied 145 Border Collies aged 6 months to 14 years in the Clever Dog Lab.

The researchers wanted to address the question of whether habituation, and/or training influences dogs' gaze following response, and to determine how this ability changes over the course of a dog's life by comparing groups of dogs of different ages.

The scientists tested two groups of dogs with differing amounts of formal training over their lifespan. Both groups participated firstly in a test and control condition, where their initial gaze following performance was measured.
The experimenter obtained the dogs' attention using its name and the command "watch" after which the experimenter turned her head swiftly to look at the door of the testing room in the test condition, or looked down to the floor next to her feet in the control condition.
If the dogs responded by looking at the door within two seconds in the test condition but did not look at the door in the control condition, a gaze following response was recorded.

After the gaze following trials, the main group was given an intensive training session with the experimenter to initiate eye contact, over a 5 minute period.
The second group was instead trained in a task where they had to touch a tennis ball with their paw. This control group was included to rule out any effects of decreased response due to repeated exposure to human gaze cues and fatigue.
Immediately after these trainings the dogs were again tested in the gaze following trials.
Researchers found that gaze following to human gaze cues did not differ over the dogs' lifespan, but dogs which had a higher amount of formal training over their lifespan showed a lower gaze following response compared to dogs with little or no training.

Similarly, short-term training also decreased dogs' gaze following response and increased gaze to the human face.
The authors concluded that formal training had a stronger influence than ageing or habituation on dogs' gaze following response.