“Each time I step out, it looks for me. So I ask, ‘Can I go now Simba?’ — reassuring that I’ll return,” says Deepak Nagar, petting a white dog with brown markings around his eyes and a fluffy tail.

Nagar, 33, works at Neighbourhood Woof, a non-profit organisation running an Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre in Timarpur. For the past seven years, he has been a dog catcher and caretaker, devoted to the city’s stray dogs.

Simba is among the centre’s permanent residents — those abandoned or rescued by the workers. It is Nagar’s most loyal companion, staying by his side for the past two years.

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However, Monday’s Supreme Court order, directing municipal authorities to pick up and relocate all stray dogs in Delhi-NCR to dedicated shelters, has left Nagar worried.

“Implementing it is difficult, even if large spaces are created for the dogs,” he says.

“How can we go into a centre housing a large pack and ensure hygiene? If a dog dies inside the shelter, how will we even be able to remove it?”

Like several other NGOs, Neighbourhood Woof has tied up with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to run the ABC centre. The workers would bring in the canines for sterilisation and vaccination and then release them back at the locations where they were picked up.

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The shelter currently has 100-120 dogs. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha) The shelter currently has 100-120 dogs. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha)

Settling on the floor in an open space, Nagar describes his work.

His day begins at 8 am. After he rouses his colleagues, they serve breakfast — curd rice — in steel bowls to around 100-120 dogs. Once everyone’s fed, they move on to cleaning the kennels.

On his work as a dog catcher, he explains: “I, along with three or four others, go to catch the dogs after we get a call or spot them ourselves. Sometimes, people resist, while others request us not to take the strays away.”

As a few dogs run around, Nagar gestures at a light brown one with upright ears that hops while walking. “I have named it Auto because it walks on only three legs,” he says, adding that Auto’s front left leg was amputated.

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Pointing to more dogs, he reels off their names — Scooter, GPO, Jackie, Bharati, Komal and Christina.

Just then, Simba jumps up, reaching Nagar’s waist, while Scooter tries to scoot closer. “Simba is very possessive of me,” Nagar laughs.

The centre, which was opened in 2014 by Ayesha Christina Benn, Managing Trustee and CEO, has 12 kennels at present. There are a total of 15 staff working at the centre. Work is currently underway to add more kennels.

The walls sport paintings of the first dog at the centre — Seth — flowers and trees, all done by Nagar. He has a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Chaudhary Charan Singh University, and takes art classes for children in the afternoons.

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Nagar’s two brothers — Vipin (31) and Vishal (20) — also work at the shelter, and they live there.

Hailing from Faridabad, he says he used to live with his family — parents and five siblings — till he turned five years old. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother left them. She returned later and, with the help of a relative, left him and three of his siblings at a care home.

Nagar says he has now found a family here, among the four-legged residents. “Each night when I go to bed, one dog sleeps on my stomach, another cuddles up in my arms, and Simba stations itself on my shoulder.”

His most cherished memory is from when Simba refused to go back to its owner. “Simba was two years old when the owner abandoned it. But the man returned a few weeks later, demanding to take Simba back. I opened the kennel door, but the dog did not leave. Simba chose me over its owner — isn’t that crazy? That was the day I realised I belong here.”

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Nagar, however, voices uncertainty about what will happen to the dogs still at the shelter — the apex court has directed “to maintain a daily record of stray dogs captured and detained” and said that “not a single stray dog should be released”.

Nagar says this will only leave the canines in distress: “Everyone should see how a dog starts wagging its tail the moment we take it back to the spot we picked it up from, after surgery. As soon as I unlock the van door, it leaps out, following the familiar scent of its locality.”