Thanks, guys!
She came over yesterday (then stayed longer than I had anticipated and then I had to rush to the dentist for my appt.), and she had copied a few pages for me from "Mine!".
We started out very low value items.
We started with a nylabone.
Since Luke wanted to follow us wherever we went (since the nylabone means nothing to him), we had to leash him, and my husband held the leash.
Trainer left the room.
Came back, tossed a treat, Luke got treat, trainer took nylabone as Luke got the treat.
Then gave it back to him.
Rinse and repeat.
Then we went to rope toy.
No interest, really.
Rinse and repeat with treat and trade.
Then on to orbee ball.
Rinse repeat.
Then on to a fish stick chewy.
rinse repeat, not much interest.
Then we smeared a little bit of peanut butter onto the end of the fish stick.
He got interested in it then, but we had been working for an hour or so on such low value items, that he was already anticipating us coming into the room, so he wanted the treats we would toss at him.
But then came the empty kong.
Then the kong with peanut butter smeared a little around the edges of the hole (something just so he gets into it and it holds his interest).
We did that one for a while, and he had no issues, what-so-ever.
In fact, by the last time we did it, when Ben walked in the room, he looked up from the kong in anticipation at him.
So, good news is, that it seems to be going FABULOUSLY so far. I know it was only once, but Luke is already making the "Humans=good stuff/better stuff than what I have currently" connection.
We ended that session on that note.
And we will work with him daily, no high value items, I am hand-feeding (taught him "take", and I make him work for his food, and I had to start using smaller handfuls because he INHALES his food.), and we will be remaining with things he's not growling about for a WHILE.
No going over threshold, hopefully, EVER.
I am quite happy with how it went.