I'd say that animals have beliefs, self-awareness, and the ability to predict, but they do it all nonverbally. They don't think in words. But imagine both you and (say) a dog on the edge of a tall building looking down, feeling fear, and drawing back. You might be thinking in words, although not necessarily. But both you and the dog would have an awareness of yourselves, a sense of a future involving the consequences of falling off of the building, and the same belief that you need to step back.
Regarding your burden of proof discussion with Subduction Zone, one element that is frequently left out such discussions is that nobody has a burden of proof if they don't care if they are believed. Without that proof, or more correctly, compelling argument, what is left is a claim, which is an opinion at that stage. If it's a matter that your reader or listener isn't already familiar with, his choices are to ask you for your evidence, pursue it himself, or just ignore the claim according to Hitchen's Razor, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
For whatever your reasons, you don't care to make the argument, and Subduction Zone isn't interested enough to do the research. So, what we have is an unsubstantiated claim that if remembered, will be remembered as bobhikes' opinion. That seems to be good enough for both of you.