A network device and a method for monitoring operational messages is described. The method comprises monitoring an occurrence of an operational message of the network device, and storing dynamic context information at the time that the operational message occurred. The stored dynamic context information is then associated with the operational message. The operational message (e.g., a syslog message) may be stored together with the dynamic context information in a metalog memory and may comprise a snapshot of a procedure stack, the procedure stack including information indicative of a sequence of procedure invocations.