Haha, no worries!
/u/KestrelLowing, so I'm a big proponent of using a dog's daily amount of kibble as the primary food reward during training. I'm not suggesting, at all, that high value food rewards and toys don't have a place, but if used too often or in the wrong situation, I feel as though they can have constraints on your training. My excuse is that they are healthier and you don't have to worry about over feeding, but in reality it forces me to get a lot more training done- otherwise my dogs don't eat. However, as I'm sure you've realized, a lot of dogs will look at the kibble like "WTF? lolno" and either won't work for it at all, or won't perform difficult behaviors for its prospect (as in my case and yours). So here are some tips that I've found very helpful for increasing Penny's motivation for kibble:
Yup! You can counter condition a boring ol' piece of kibble to be the best thing in the world (slight exaggeration) just as you would any other stimulus. Conditioned reinforcer (kibble), immediately followed by an unconditioned reinforcer (any primary reinforcer). Eat the kibble -> Play a round of tug. Eat the kibble -> Put on the leash. Eat the kibble -> eat your favorite treat. I found it to be pretty easy to write out a list of all the things Penny found reinforcing, and simply offer a piece of kibble just before each of these things- so this may be something that you would consider working on with Laika.
The idea behind an interactive reward event is that engagement and interaction with the handler are the most reinforcing parts of the reward, not necessarily the reward itself (in this case, kibble). So rather than simply handing one piece of food after another, you can 'play with her food.' For example, she can chase the food in your hand, miss it, and dash in the opposite direction before releasing the food reward; as well as varying the quantity of these 'events' from two to four, and so on. It's a bit difficult to explain, but Michael Ellis goes over it briefly towards the end of this clip and in depth in his DVD/download, The Power of Training Dogs with Food. It's a pretty basic DVD for the most part, but his work on Luring and reward events has made the investment well worth it for the difference it has made in my training sessions.
3.) Hunger.
Obviously, hunger can play a big role in how motivated a dog is for food. I'm not suggesting, at all, to starve your dog in order to build food motivation (ah the good ol' days) or that she can never have a treat again ever (I use freeze dried liver often for proofing behaviors and classical conditioning), but I pretty much only feed my dogs via training, and what's left over is served in a puzzle toy. So if Laika hasn't eaten that day before you train, you can get pretty far with just boring ol' kibble... just sayin'...
I know that this didn't exactly answer your original question, but hopefully it helps?