Puppies are born with 'human-like' social skills that enable them to communicate with people, reveals a new study.

Dogs need little to no training to be able to follow directions thanks to their innate genes developed and reared over centuries.

More than 40 per cent of the variation in a puppy's ability to follow a human's finger-pointing is explained by the genes they've inherited.

Researchers tested 375 eight-week-old puppies who were all set to become service dogs in the future - consisting of 98 Labrador retrievers, 23 golden retrievers, and 254 Labrador golden crosses from 117 different litters.

They all had an extremely similar rearing history and a known pedigree going back multiple generations.

Puppies were able to find and bring back an object like a cup pointed to by a human, and were able to do so even when the odour was masked.

All the dogs were successful in at least one task showing they are skilful from the start when it comes to social communications relying on gestures and eye contact.

However, the communication only worked when people initiated the interaction by speaking to the puppies in a high-pitched voice.