"I agree with a lot of the article, but we still need to be cautious in assigning emotions to animals based on behavior. We tend to see what we want to see."

I do not agree with that. You can say the same about humans too. We do not know whether the other human has feelings or, not we just presume its existence. We know animals have a brain and an advanced nerve system, they react to pain as we do. There is no reason to assume that they do not feel as we do.

Back at the university we were taught by the lecturer about cats in animal testing. They implanted microchips and various instruments into their brains with which they could discover that they actually had dreams!