BOSTON -- An English mastiff that was ordered to be euthanized after it bit a 23-year-old woman and, separately, the wife of Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, was spared by a Hingham court official this week who ruled to reverse the dog’s death sentence.

Gabriella, the 8-year-old mastiff, had been a fixture at the South Street art gallery owned by Megan and Rob Ullman, the Hingham Square Gallery, for about five years. Police took notice of Gabriella in June 2008, however, when the 37-year-old wife of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, Stacey Wakefield, was bitten by the dog.

Stacey Wakefield, who lives in Hingham, told police that the mastiff bit her when she walked into the unlocked gallery and found Gabriella and Spartacus, another mastiff owned by the Ullman’s, left unattended inside. Wakefield, whose complaint against the Ullman’s was resolved in court in 2008, said the couple showed little concern after they were told Gabriella had bitten her, according to the Patriot Ledger.

Court documents show that police warned the Ullman’s at the time that they could face a criminal complaint if they continued to bring the dogs to the gallery. There were five recorded incidents of the dogs being in the gallery after that warning, the documents show.

On the recommendation of a local animal control officer, Hingham selectmen voted to destroy the dog last month after a 23-year-old Braintree woman was bitten in the gallery in a similar incident. Selectmen also banned Spartacus from Hingham Square. Megan Ullman is still scheduled to appear in court on criminal charges for the incident, which required the woman to seek medical treatment for her injuries.

“There is precious little on which you can base an assumption that there will be responsible behavior in the future when there has been such abjectly irresponsible behavior in the past,” Town Administrator Kevin Paicos said at the time.

The Ullman’s, who were visibly upset after the vote from town selectmen, brought a complaint about the euthanasia order to Hingham District Court on Thursday. A clerk magistrate sided with the couple, ruling that Gabriella should instead be sent to a shelter in New York to live out the rest of her life.