St. Thomas Aquinas believed that animals do not have a will (only humans do) because they are not able to intellectualize their desires. They do what they want because they have no choice, while humans have a multitude of choices from which to rationalize their behavior.
Clearly the issue here is that some animals are capable of making more complex decisions than others. Few would argue that an octopus has the same free will as an ant. There appears to be a spectrum of intellectual complexity that corresponds to the strength of the will, and the soul I might add. The greater the ability to reason, the greater the will and proportionately bigger the soul.
In this manner, I agree with Aquinas that humans have a superior will to all other species, but not that inferior species are totally lacking a will. If the sheep has no choice but to eat grass, we are similarly limited by having no choice but to eat food, even if we do have a broader selection of what to eat. Like us, how the sheep chooses to spend the rest of its time depends on its will.
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