What does "petting" mean in this context?
The little gray wires should be all nice and straight. Even though your chip may be a good boi, touching it will wreak havoc on the wire bonding. Repairing the damage shown on the picture takes a skilled worker and very expensive equipment. Even then the repair is not fully guaranteed to be successful.
Why is the chip naked? Get a can or some epoxy.
We are working towards having a product properly packaged. This is a prototype that is not mature enough yet to justify the cost/time to package it. Moreover, this custom chip is used to measure ultra low currents (down to femto amps), so any packaging could potentially interfere with the measurement capabilities (-> no epoxy). It is however protected by a large shielding box, but it's no use during assembly/modifications :/
Advice considered.
