OK.......
I can't tell you how many insurance claims I saw just on small toy breeds. However, usually the pay out was around $1,000 or so. It wasn't nearly as common to see from larger breeds.
Chihuahuas are ones that bite a lot. In all honesty most of people get info from the media which can vary from real life and there is also a bias in reporting bites. Do you hear about the small dog that bites a person and broke the skin or do you hear more often from the larger dog (currently it's the pitbull but it was previously the german shepard) biting someone?
I didn't mention anything about deaths and in fact I did actually say larger breeds (that's a lot to do with their size, jaw muscle, etc) tend to cause more extensive damage soooo yeah think you misunderstood that point.
This thread isn't about breed specific stuff. I put that in there (meaning size aspect) because the poster seemed to have a gut reaction due to the size of the dog that was coming closer to their dog (which they also mentioned the size). If that small dog the poster had was a chihuahua or a lhasa apso or a jack russell terrier versus a big dog like an Old English Sheepdog or as someone mentioned upthread a Newfoundland I would be much more concerned with the chihuahua or lhasa apso or a jack russell terrier.
-Let's agree to disagree and move on to the actual topic of the thread-
I'm sorry, but you're wrong, despite whatever apocryphal evidence you have. Here is a table listing dog bite statistics from 1982-2014:
Bodily harm Child Victims Adult Victims Deaths Maimings % of total dog population
Pit bull 3397 1355 1312 295 2110 6.69%
Rottweiler 535 297 141 85 296 2.76%
Husky 83 51 8 26 27 1.04%
Wolf hybrid 85 70 5 19 49
Bullmastiff (Presa canario) 111 46 41 18 63 0.02%
German shepherd 113 65 41 15 73 3.72%
Pit bull-mix 206 78 54 12 115
Akita 70 44 22 8 52 0.07%
Chow 61 37 18 8 40 0.01%
Doberman 23 12 9 8 12 1.70%
Unidentified 81 16 29 8 32
Boxer 64 19 23 7 31 1.25%
German shepherd-mix 45 28 14 7 30
If this is too hard to read, here is a link to the study:
http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-study-dog-attacks-and-maimings-merritt-clifton.php
As you can clearly see, pit bulls and rottweilers consist of only 9.45% of the total dog population, but account for the vast majority of bites in all categories from bodily harm to deaths and maimings.