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I don't really believe in souls either. While I don't think you can explain consciousness by some scheme that reduces it to the merely material, it seems to me that some theory of emergent properties that supervene on the material has a pretty good chance of working. So, by Occam's Razor, souls are out.
I don't think that any animals other than humans are conscious (or sentient, or whatever you want to call 'self-awareness'). I'm at least slightly familiar with the arguments for apes/elephants/whatever being coscious, but I haven't seen any convincing arguments. Do they feel pain? Sure. Are they aware that they are feeling pain? Not in the same sense as humans.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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