Cody the dachshund mix faced a court-ordered death on this week in Philly history

During the dog days of summer in 1993, Terri N. Gelberg considered buying a bicycle.

She was test-riding a few models on the Manayunk towpath when Cody, an unleashed 7-month-old dachshund mix, jumped up and bit her thigh.

After the attack, she said, the dog lay down, “shaking and drooling.” A veterinarian friend warned her about the potential for rabies, a deadly viral disease that attacks a person’s nervous system.

Gelberg said the wound was deep, and still bleeding through bandages a week after the bite. After rabies shots, Gelberg wanted the dog tested, sparing her from two more needles, she told authorities.

At the time, a rabies assessment required the dog be killed, so its brain could be autopsied and tested.

John Parker, the dog’s owner, balked.

So they took the grievance to a Philadelphia Common Pleas courtroom, where Judge Pro Tem Thomas Rutter would decide whether to approve the doggy death penalty.

The two-hour hearing was held on July 28, 1993, and treated by some as a joke. Barking noises rose from a throng of media and gawkers before the proceeding began. Others got angry, calling the courts and the SPCA shelter where Cody was being held.

“All the people would say was, ‘Free Cody,’ and hang up on you,” a court secretary said.

Inquirer reporter Craig R. McCoy covered the event, describing a proceeding that was “by turns zany and melancholy.”

On one side of the courtroom: the 40ish Gelberg, a Temple University law school graduate who was conservatively dressed in a green blouse and jacket.

On the other: the 43-year-old Parker, comfortably dressed in jeans and a red sleeveless T-shirt.

Gelberg testified. Parker did not.

When Gelberg described her rabies fears on the stand, she burst into tears.

She said Parker was with Cody around the time Cody struck, but denied owning the puppy, only to resurface later.

Parker had apparently never taken Cody to a veterinarian, or had him vaccinated against rabies.

But an SPCA vet examined the pup and found the dog free of signs of the disease. And his “shaking and drooling” could have been caused by the high summer temperatures.

Rutter said Gelberg had not persuaded him that the dog’s behavior suggested it had rabies.

“I think any court, including this one, can take notice of the fact that dogs chase cars, that sometimes they chase bicycles, sometimes they chase people,” Rutter said.

Rutter didn’t let Parker off the hook, troubled by allegations that the man had denied owning the dog.

But in the end, the dog’s fate was sealed.

“Let the public out there that’s been calling know,” Rutter’s court crier announced, “Cody lives.”