In my opinion sentience would be us being aware of ourselves as individuals while also realizing that others are also like this.
without intelligence you can not be sentient, a being can not be aware of itself and other without a certain level of intelligence, take ants for example, they are only there for one thing, to work as a whole, they do not engage in personal endeavors they only exist to serve the queen, and react only based on pheromones. They lack the intelligence to be able to be considered sentient in my opinion. While dolphins, even though they work in a pod, and have an "Alpha" of the pod, they are aware of what is going on around them and the changes to their environments, they are not just out to be, they are out to live, love and have fun.
Though my description does not really co inside with the actual definition of Sentience, what i say is my take on the word and how i perceive it.