When letting any kind of animal track you with their snack(Such as seeds for chicken, wheat for cows/sheep) or followers like cats and wolves;

• They will seek the nearest block on elevation change to match the one of the player before continue to tracking the player(Keep in mind the AI doesn't kill pathfinding, but they behave differently than they did in 1.13.*)
• In water, they can't seem to track the player with pinpoint accuracy; Either A. They keep swimming on one axis or B. They can't figure out on which axis they need to follow.

In both of the listed issues above, the animals tend to stop looking at the player and rather pathfind their way one axis(X or Z) at a time to correct for elevation change.

Reminder: In 1.13.* and earlier version the animals kept track of all axis at the same time without issues and hereby keep looking at the player at all times.