Getting the liver smell off your hands and pockets

Liver smell on hands comes off with plain soap and warm water, which is what the back of our bag asks for anyway. It prints wash hands after handling, in capitals, and the pieces are freeze-dried raw beef liver. So wash up after every session, even on the days you cannot smell a thing.

What does the bag say about washing your hands?

Turn a bag of our liver over and the storage lines sit on the back. One of them is printed in capitals: wash hands after handling. And this is freeze-dried raw beef liver, never cooked. Freeze-drying takes out the water and nothing else.

We treat that line the way we would treat it on a package of chicken thighs. Raw meat gets handled, and then hands get washed, with no debate about it. The dog does not need to understand why. You do, a little, and the label is the short version.

The FDA keeps a page on handling raw pet food at home, and it is worth one read if raw treats are new to your house. That is our whole position. The bag says wash, we wash, and the rest of this page is about doing it well.

How do you wash liver smell off your fingers and nails?

Soap and warm water, with a little more time than a quick rinse. Work the soap over the backs of your fingers and around each thumb. Scrub under each nail with the nails of your other hand, rinse, and dry on a clean towel rather than the one that has hung on the hook since Tuesday.

If you still catch it when you sniff your fingertips, go again. A second round at the sink is cheap. We have no trick beyond that, and we are not going to invent one. The method is soap, warm water and attention to the nails, the same as after handling any raw meat in the kitchen.

How do you keep liver off your hands in the first place?

Break the session's pieces before you start, at the kitchen counter. Our pieces break apart by hand, so a minute of breaking gives you a pouch of training bits and one set of hands to wash right then. After that, your fingers go into the pouch and not into the bag.

Hand the bits out with the same two fingers every time. Thumb and forefinger pinch a bit, the dog takes it, and the other three fingers never touch liver. It sounds fussy at first. At the end you have two fingers to scrub instead of two hands.

Keep the main bag sealed and leave it at home. The bag says to reseal after opening, and a bag that stays out of your hands mid-walk is easy to keep resealed. A pouch with a closing top does the carrying.

What about pockets, pouches and the car?

No loose liver in a coat pocket. A pocket lining does not wash at the sink. Pieces go into a pouch with a top that closes, and the pouch goes into the pocket if that is where you like to keep it.

Wash the pouch the way its care label says, and dry it fully before the next load. The bag asks for a dry place, so a pouch goes back into service only when its seams are dry too.

In the car the rule is the same: sealed bag, closed pouch. For what the pieces themselves look and smell like out of the bag, see what freeze-dried liver looks like.

Who in the house should not handle liver treats?

This is a raw product, and some homes handle raw differently. If there is a baby in the house, or someone whose doctor has told them to stay away from raw foods, ask your veterinarian before a raw treat comes through the door. We say the same in our comparison of raw, cooked and freeze-dried liver, and we would rather say it twice than not at all.

For everyone else, the rule is the one on the bag. Whoever hands out the liver washes up afterward, including anyone who helped with a trick or two. Make it part of the session, the way hanging up the leash is. The beef liver product page shows the bag if you want to see where the line sits.