The use of tools is a complex form of thought made possible by the same part of brain (once again, the frontal lobe) that planning is. Planning and complex rational thought are both created more or less the same way by this same area of the brain. Also, I never said they were related, I said that complex plans which also involve the use of tools is very impressive.
A tool-free example of the cat planning test I mentioned would be if a cat climbs up into a tree or onto a roof. The cat, when called down the opposite side of the tree (especially roofs) will be unable to recognize that it can more quickly get down the same way it got up and then, once down, walk around to the person calling it. Instead it will continue to try to find a way to go directly from where it is to where you are until it gives in and begins to call for help.
I said animals have some ability for simple planning, but act nearly entirely out of instinct. I didn't say they couldn't plan at all, just that the level of planning is rather basic and entirely unimpressive, especially compared to something like in the article.
Your dog has been conditioned to know you get upset when he pees in the house. He is responding to a combination between his natural instinctual response to anger and his learned instincts. He does this by peeing on your sofa, which was embedded in him through conditioning (he pees, you get upset, it embeds in him that this action will solicit this response). He has the ability to do simple planning, but the example you gave is almost all a combination of natural and taught instinct. I can make an dog run an obstacle course, do a series of tricks and then select a proper box out of a series of options entirely out of instinct. This can be mistaken as planning, but is not.
And, for the record, people are hardly more amazing than that, and are relatively easy to predict using just a behavioral approach, especially en masse. Granted, a pure behavioral approach is not the entire picture, there is a lot more at work (most approaches have valuable insight to certain areas of human behavior). But it is a great way to predict how people will act, especially when combined with a genetic or evolutionary approach. Animals are far less impressive than this. When animals surprise us, it's nearly always because we had a misunderstanding of their base instinct or the balance of instincts at work, not because they're thinking or planning ahead. They can, but most do so very rarely and cannot do so very far into the future.