diff --git a/pkg/logs/patterns/tags/tag_manager.go b/pkg/logs/patterns/tags/tag_manager.go
index 08a7927b9aed..fa086bcd78da 100644
--- a/pkg/logs/patterns/tags/tag_manager.go
+++ b/pkg/logs/patterns/tags/tag_manager.go
@@ -153,6 +153,21 @@ func (tm *TagManager) Get(tag string) (uint64, bool) {
 	return tm.GetStringID(tag)
 }
 
+// TouchDictID updates the access metadata for an existing dictionary ID.
+// It returns false if the ID was already evicted.
+func (tm *TagManager) TouchDictID(id uint64) bool {
+	tm.mu.Lock()
+	defer tm.mu.Unlock()
+
+	entry, exists := tm.idToEntry[id]
+	if !exists {
+		return false
+	}
+	entry.usageCount++
+	entry.lastAccessAt = time.Now()
+	return true
+}
+
 // EvictStaleEntries removes all entries that haven't been accessed within the given TTL.
 // Returns the IDs of evicted entries so callers can send DictEntryDelete messages.
 func (tm *TagManager) EvictStaleEntries(ttl time.Duration) []uint64 {
diff --git a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/batch_strategy.go b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/batch_strategy.go
index 2cee6bfe1ebd..f39520e92eef 100644
--- a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/batch_strategy.go
+++ b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/batch_strategy.go
@@ -293,6 +293,15 @@ func (s *batchStrategy) flushBuffer(outputChan chan *message.Payload) {
 	s.sendMessagesWithDatums(messagesMetadata, grpcDatums, outputChan)
 }
 
+func isWireStateDatum(datum *statefulpb.Datum) bool {
+	switch datum.Data.(type) {
+	case *statefulpb.Datum_PatternDelete, *statefulpb.Datum_DictEntryDelete:
+		return false
+	default:
+		return true
+	}
+}
+
 func (s *batchStrategy) sendMessagesWithDatums(messagesMetadata []*message.MessageMetadata, grpcDatums []*statefulpb.Datum, outputChan chan *message.Payload) {
 	defer s.utilization.Stop()
 
@@ -301,12 +310,17 @@ func (s *batchStrategy) sendMessagesWithDatums(messagesMetadata []*message.Messa
 		unencodedSize += msgMeta.RawDataLen
 	}
 
-	// Extract all state changes from this batch for snapshot management
+	// Extract all state changes from this batch for snapshot management, and build
+	// the filtered set of datums that will actually be sent over the wire.
 	var stateChanges []*statefulpb.Datum
+	wireDatums := make([]*statefulpb.Datum, 0, len(grpcDatums))
 	for _, datum := range grpcDatums {
 		if isStateDatum(datum) {
 			stateChanges = append(stateChanges, datum)
 		}
+		if isWireStateDatum(datum) {
+			wireDatums = append(wireDatums, datum)
+		}
 	}
 
 	// Track per-datum-type counts and sizes
@@ -334,7 +348,7 @@ func (s *batchStrategy) sendMessagesWithDatums(messagesMetadata []*message.Messa
 
 	// Create DatumSequence and marshal to bytes
 	datumSeq := &statefulpb.DatumSequence{
-		Data: grpcDatums,
+		Data: wireDatums,
 	}
 
 	var err error
diff --git a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state.go b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state.go
index 4c80358237ed..cbea344ebcfc 100644
--- a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state.go
+++ b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state.go
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ import (
 )
 
 const nanoToMillis = 1000000
-const staleTTL = 14 * time.Minute
+const staleTTL = 5 * time.Minute
 const staleSweepInterval = 30 * time.Second
 
 // batchEntry is a per-message sidecar used during batch tokenization.
@@ -497,7 +497,7 @@ func (mt *MessageTranslator) buildTagSet(msg *message.Message) (*statefulpb.TagS
 		mt.tagCache.source == currentSource &&
 		mt.tagCache.status == currentStatus &&
 		mt.tagCache.tagsString == currentTagsString &&
-		mt.tagManager.HasDictID(mt.tagCache.dictID) {
+		mt.tagManager.TouchDictID(mt.tagCache.dictID) {
 		return mt.tagCache.tagSet, mt.tagCache.tagStr, mt.tagCache.dictID, false
 	}
 
diff --git a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state_cache_test.go b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state_cache_test.go
index 6b60a7cd898f..3e9ccf087b89 100644
--- a/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state_cache_test.go
+++ b/pkg/logs/sender/grpc/mock_state_cache_test.go
@@ -194,6 +194,35 @@ func TestBuildTagSet_CacheHitSelfHealsAfterSilentDictEviction(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.NotEqual(t, tagSet1, tagSet2, "rebuilt tagset must not reuse stale cached pointer")
 }
 
+func TestBuildTagSet_CacheHitRefreshesDictAccess(t *testing.T) {
+	tok := rtokenizer.NewRustTokenizer()
+	mt := NewMessageTranslator("test-pipeline", tok)
+
+	origin := makeTestOrigin("svc-a", "src-a", []string{"env:test"})
+	msg1 := makeMsg("log line 1", "host-1", "info", origin)
+
+	tagSet1, _, dictID1, isNew1 := mt.buildTagSet(msg1)
+
+	require.NotNil(t, tagSet1)
+	require.True(t, isNew1)
+
+	ttl := 20 * time.Millisecond
+	time.Sleep(ttl + 10*time.Millisecond)
+
+	msg2 := makeMsg("log line 2", "host-1", "info", origin)
+	tagSet2, _, dictID2, isNew2 := mt.buildTagSet(msg2)
+
+	require.NotNil(t, tagSet2)
+	assert.False(t, isNew2, "second call should use the tagset cache")
+	assert.Equal(t, dictID1, dictID2)
+	assert.Equal(t, tagSet1, tagSet2)
+
+	evictedIDs := mt.tagManager.EvictStaleEntries(ttl)
+
+	assert.NotContains(t, evictedIDs, dictID1, "cache hit should refresh the dict entry access time")
+	assert.True(t, mt.tagManager.HasDictID(dictID1), "refreshed cached tagset should remain live")
+}
+
 // --- toValidUTF8 tests ---
 
 func TestToValidUTF8_ValidString(t *testing.T) {
@@ -205,7 +234,7 @@ func TestToValidUTF8_ValidString(t *testing.T) {
 		{"ascii", "hello world"},
 		{"multibyte", "caf\xc3\xa9"},                          // café
 		{"emoji", "\xf0\x9f\x98\x80 smile"},                   // U+1F600
-		{"nul is valid utf8", "hello\x00world"},                // NUL is valid UTF-8 (U+0000)
+		{"nul is valid utf8", "hello\x00world"},               // NUL is valid UTF-8 (U+0000)
 		{"mixed scripts", "\xe4\xb8\xad\xe6\x96\x87 Chinese"}, // 中文
 	}
 	for _, tt := range tests {