Well this section should definitely be broken off into a different topic!
Do chihuahuas bite a lot? Apparently true, according at least to Canine Journal, citing the infuriating “one dog per page” source “11 Dog Breeds That Bite the Most”. However, although chihuahuas are first on that list, I can’t find anything that says they actually bite the most. Maybe they’re listed first because they bite the most, maybe they’re listed first because an editor or writer thought “Oo, that’ll get attention!”
Chihuahua kills, however, seem far more unlikely. There’s this source about “breeds of dogs involved in human dog-bite related fatalities”, and chihuahuas do not appear in the PDF. I know very little about dogs so maybe they’re inside one of the categories there. I know enough about dogs that they’re definitely not in the “pit bull-type” or Rottweiler or German Shepherd or Husky or Malamute categories, which are the top six of the purebreds.
A Denver-based newspaper has Chihuahuas placed #3 in the total number of bites over 2010-2018, behind Labrador retrievers (87 bites total) and German shepherds (45 bites total). Chihuahuas had 27 bites total, but note that 26 were minor, 0 moderate, 0 severe, 1 unknown - so lots of nips, but not exactly fatal.
Forbes seems to use a different data source, but once again, no chihuahuas appear to have harmed or been harmed in the reporting of that article.
Man, the rabbit holes I’ll descend down when I’m avoiding the academic reading I should be doing.