This is the original text, with some parts highlighted.
This bright purple text is my commentary.
I believe cats and dogs have the ability to feel emotions. They are not stagnant, stiff, frozen beings. As experienced personally, it is apparent when a dog is excited, or happy when it wags its tail, or nudges its head toward someone when they scratch behind their ears. They get happy, and sad. This is the first consideration in the paper relevant to whether animals have minds: sometimes, they just look to us to have minds. (This will also be offered as an argument in Paper 3.) Highs and lows are experienced by animals just the same as humans. They play off the environment surrounding them, and are directly influenced by it. Within both bodies of cats and dogs, feelings are expressed, as well as their personal well-being. This being said, these emotions are not connected to any thoughts, but are purely a bodily function adapting and adjusting to their environment. They cannot comprehend, or rationalize their feelings, experiences, or thoughts. The emotions they feel occur in the moment, and only in the moment, and need to be triggered by a physical factor. Dogs and cats see images, obey orders, and act on their body as opposed to their mind. The rest of this first paragraph is difficult to understand. I had to read it several times to figure out what you were trying to say. This can and should be put in simpler, more straightforward terms.
I do not believe dogs and cats have minds in the same sense that humans have minds. It seems as if a mind is far too complex for them to possess. This is the second consideration: even if animals have some mental capacities, those capacities are too simple to count as minds. Their actions would be much more rational, than just mere natural reactions This is a third consideration: are animals acting rationally? Or are they just naturally responding to stimuli? You must explain what you mean by this contrast, and explain what bearing it has on the main question of whether animals have minds. Does having a mind require that one act rationally rather than just naturally respond to stimuli? to external stimuli. I believe humans have minds. Humans have the capability to go off on their own, form their own belief system with morals and values, and create themselves based on what they themselves want. Whereas cats and dogs are a bit more dependent, a bit more needy, and reliant on others of their kinds to be able too live. This is the fourth consideration: humans are self-sufficient and have free will, whereas animals are more dependent and needy. What cats and dogs do is the basis of their judgment by their own kind, whereas in the case of humans it is more so what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. It seems as if life is more complex for us, because we are more complex and capable of understanding. We can also communicate in a much more understandable way to each other. We not only have body language, but verbal language as well to express our thoughts, and feelings. This is much more specific, with differences being a lot more noticeable within each individual. This is the fifth consideration: how versatile are animals at communicating? As a result, humans are much more personalized, and individualized even though we are a communal species.
The notion of "mind" that you are working with seems idiosyncratic. You think that animals could have some kinds of mental states, like emotions, without having "minds"; a mind requires more mental complexity. This isn't the notion of "mind" that we're working with in this class. We're using the notion of a "mind" in such a way that anything that has any mental states at all has a mind. It'd have been best if you used the notion of a "mind" in the way we were in class. It'd be second-best if you used "mind" in the different way you do here, but you had clearly explained the difference between that and our usage in class. As it was, you didn't do either. But let's set this aside and see how good a job you do arguing that animals don't have "minds" in your sense.
The paper has a bad balance between stating your views and arguing for them. It does too much of the former and too little of the latter. You stake out too much ground---state too many claims that need defending---and don't do enough, or even leave yourself enough space, to defend them.
Additionally, you don't clearly separate or make clear to your reader what your arguments are. I identified five possible arguments in the text, but they don't stand out and a casual reader might miss some of them.
And these arguments need to be better developed. For each consideration you introduce, you need to address the questions: Is that a requirement for having a "mind"? Why or why not? What is the evidence that animals lack it? Usually, you just say that it's needed to have a mind, and animals don't have it. That has very little argumentative force.
Arguments in a paper like this should have three stages: