Licking her own pee?

[sandrag86]

Some of you may know that I recently adopted/rescued Maggie from her owner...I say rescued because I really don't think that she had that great a quality of life before. She is displaying certain behaviors where I believe she has been abused.
I won't get into the certain things right now - but there is one thing that concerns me and was wondering if I could get some insight from my fellow Yorkie friends and experts.
Maggie is definitely a submissive urinater; not only when she gets excited...but even when I go towards her to pick her up or even play with her...it's as if she thinks I am going to hit her or something. She immediately lays flat on the ground, ears flat on her head, cowers, eyes closed and then pees. I instantly back off, say gently that it is okay...she then gets back up...but does the strangest thing that I haven't seen before, she goes to where she piddles and quickly starts licking it up. ???

Does anyone know what that's all about? She never licks her pee up when she intentionally goes for a pee indoors on her pee pad or even if she accidentally pees on the carpet/ceramic floors or outside...it's only if she thinks she did something bad.
After she licks at the spot she bucklaps away from me, tail between her legs to a hiding spot, leaving me utterly perplexed at what just happened.
Poor little mite.

Has anyone heard of anything like this before?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated - and how I can go about approaching this situation would be awesome too.

Thanks.

[Patti]

Not sure but may have something to do with her past life and how she was reprimanded for submissive peeing. Hopefully, others will respond with some helpful information.

[Sunnydayz]

I agree with Patti. She may have been hit or punished for the peeing, so she's trying to get rid of it so she won't get in trouble :-( poor baby sounds like she had it rough. If Gizmo did this I would probably act like I didn't see, and divert her attention to a fun activity of fetch or tug of war or something. You know, just trying to redirect her thought process away from feeling bad about what she's done, then clean it up when she doesn't see you do it. It is so horrible how many of these beautiful pups can be treated so badly. For the life of me, I don't know how these people sleep at night :-(

[pink66]

This breaks my heart! That poor baby!!

[Cherie6446]

Poor little thing. This is sad and I think I would redirect her whenever she pees and give her lots of love and clean up the pee later.

[Bellabean]

Poor little baby.

[Teegy]

That's heart wrenching. I'm glad you've given her the chance for a better life

[Harrysmum]

Oh my goodness, that poor, poor little girl....it makes my heart hurt.

I agree with the others - she's trying to remove what she THINKS she's done wrong.....

God bless you for taking her into your home, and treating her with such gentleness and compassion. I wish you luck, and a great big hug from Sally + Harry!!! x

[CouversMom]

That poor baby... to think of the life she must have had. Thank you for rescuing her.

I would say she's probably trying to clean it up to avoid getting in trouble. She is going to need a lot of confidence boosting from you. Poor girl. I'm glad you have her now.