Sentience is the ability to perceive your surroundings using your senses. What cows (probably) haven’t achieved is sapience, roughly the ability to think about more than your immediate sensual impressions, in the abstract. Modern humans have decided they are extra sapient, hence “homo sapiens sapiens” whereas Neanderthals are “homo sapiens neanderthalensis”.
Sentience is the ability to perceive your surroundings using your senses. What cows (probably) haven’t achieved is sapience, roughly the ability to think about more than your immediate sensual impressions, in the abstract. Modern humans have decided they are extra sapient, hence “homo sapiens sapiens” whereas Neanderthals are “homo sapiens neanderthalensis”.