OK I will call it suffering instead of pain. I do agree that you need a mind to feel the nerve signals etc. as suffering. Yet I do not understand how you can be so certain that dogs have not already got a primitive mind, mind enough to feel suffering in the sense above?
I also accept the point of Dr. Deutsch that suffering alone is not sufficient as a criteria versus the argument for extermination as an end to natural or otherwise sufferings that will ensue. That an argument based on uniqueness, "individuality" is needed for instance as a source of creating new ideas.
My point again is how we can be so certain that a being conscious enough to feel some sort of suffering for instance- given the assumption that such being exist- won't contain "enough" originality as an "individual" of its species? That maybe it is more skillful in hunting and even "thinks up" an "insightful" maneuver in one of its hunts at the spur of the moment that would ensure its survival against all odds? Would that not be a crude primitive "idea" of some sort?
Or that it if it is capable of suffering, as an assumption, that its instinct for survival might not cause him immense fear and suffering at the moment of extermination once it its self-sustaining survival instincts become active? That at that moment it senses somewhat what is going to happen to it soon afterwards?
I guess it all boils down to this: We have no clue what a mind is really? No real model of a mind. So how can you be so certain to speak of an higher mammal as property or mere reflexive machine?
Given the odds, I think an argument can be made in favor of restraining from hurting higher animals unnecessarily on moral, given that we basically have no clue of what is a mind and how it works, for these three reasons:
1- the banality of the alternative act, like fur coats, does not justify the *possibility* of inflicting suffering on a primitive "mind" enough to suffer and unique enough to deserve existence.
2- Higher animals do exhibit behaviour that seem like they are semi-conscious, They do exhibit fear, they have some kind of memory etc. *You* claim all of these are mere reflexes, but there is really no reason as far as I can see why we should accept such claim.
3- From an evolutionary perspective your view leaves the question of how man's consciousness, self-consciousness, mind and idea producing facility arose at all given that whatever exists among the rest of the species on the face of the earth is mere blind reflexes. Was it a miracle? Wouldn't it make sense to *assume* that we as a species are capable of producing ideas at this immense scale, that does indeed set us apart from all other animals, as a result of many many little- I don't know- primitive "ideas" and "skills" of specific members of lower species, "individuals" in a crude sense, in their battle of survival that were caused and in turn-by merely surviving and adding their genes to the gene pool wher otherwise they should have been dead- causing the growth of the nervous system untill it reached this turning point?

To be sure I definitely agree that man has achieved a unique feature that sets her apart from all animals completely and that there is a huge gap between us and all other animals. I am simply not willing to deny the existence of hierarchy on the other side of the gap and that it could nevertheless be significant on the moral value of our behaviour to them. I am not willing to adamantly press all that is on the other side basically to the level of vegetable.
The fact that the gap exists is important of course. It also makes humans alone to act under the domain of morality for instance. That is why suffering induced by natural causes or other animals do not enter the equations of morality. Animals and the world in general is amoral. There is no *evil* in the way the rest of the world acts.
I also want to add that I did not suggest pain or suffering to be the basis for rights. I only argued in connection to moral behaviour and the two are not the same thing. If you see another human drowning, say, you have the right as a free man to walk away and not risk your existence but it would be morally wrong nevertheless.