The dog's entire 'ministry' is attention: it notices the master's weakness, old age, and grief, then stays close - wagging its tail, sniffing his feet, whining, guarding, refusing sleep. Nothing the dog does is grand; everything is noticing and presence. The poem's implicit claim: compassion is not a gesture you perform, it is the cost of actually seeing another person's state and being unable to look away. "Even sleeping in a ruined wooden hut, he gets no pleasure of sleep, guarding his master; until dawn he circles the bed, wakeful all night." (vv. 4-8)

— In our words · Source: Śvānastavakāvyam (The Dog-Praise Poem) (Jñāneśvara of Davuldeṇa)