Sentience has several meanings that often depend on which field of expertise is using the term. For some experts and thinkers, the word means the simple, brute ability to sense or feel (from the Latin sentire, to perceive/feel)—pain, emotion, hunger, whatever. For others, sentience means consciousness, be it rudimentary or complex. For still others, sentience refers mostly to self-awareness, the feeling of ego or "I"-ness. If a dog injures its leg, it might come running to you yelping, not because it's saying, "I'm in pain," but because it's just shouting "Pain!" without any ego-involvement at all.* But what about elephants? Are they sophisticated enough in intellect to recognize themselves when, say, they look into a mirror? (Most dogs can't do this.) See more below for some answers.
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*Dogs that fail the "mirror test" of self-recognition may nevertheless arguably possess other traits of self-awareness linked to things like scent and types of memory.
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