Teaching an old dog new tricks?

Question
Hi Anne-

We recently adopted a 7 year old rough collie that was previously a kennel dog. She is wonderful, very calm and sedate and gets along great with our kids and our other animals. Unfortunatly, she has no house manners, which was to be expected since she had been living outside all her life. She is not housetrained, which we are working on with crate training, but more importantly, she has pretty bad house manners that we have been trying to resolve. For instance, if we are eating dinner, and she is loose, she will litteraly just come right up and push her head onto the table to try to eat off your plate. She has absolutely no response  to the word "no" you literaly have to fight her head away from you and lead her away to her crate. Now we have to crate her just to eat. If we open the door to where our trash can is she will try to fight her way into the trash, and we have to wrestle her back. She isnt hyper or aggressive, just like a big, quiet, muscle trying to move past you. We have tried to do basic obedience training with her (Sit, down, stay, come, etc) and she shows absolutely 0 interest, just stands there looking at you or turns around and walks away. She has incredibly selective hearing, and ignores everyone most of the time. If she does do something wrong and we want to point it out to her by saying "no" or clapping our hands or trying to redirect her attention to something positive, she again shows absolutely no response, sometimes she wont even look at you. You physically have to remove her from whatever she was doing and block her from going back to it. She is soooo stuborn! One of our other dogs used to be a terrible counter surfer, and we broke the habit by keeping the counters clear and using a can of pennies to startle him down if he jumped up. But if the collie jumps on the counter, nothing disuades her, again you have to physically go and pull her down and lead her away from the counter. She isn't toy/ball/treat motivated, and I can't seem to get any excitement out of her, so training has just been a major flop so far. Its so unusual for us because our last collie was incredibly bright and easy to train and very responsive to clicker training and positive reinforcement. Our new girl is pretty much a living rug until she decides to do something like counter surf or go for the garbage or try to steal food etc. Then she is like a ninja- so silent!! She is currently unaltered but has an appointment to get spayed soon. I'm just so confused about how to go about training her, because I can't get any response from her. The other day my husband was eating a sandwhich and she walked up to him very quietly and just reached over and grabbed the other end very slowly before he even noticed she was standing next to him, and though he said "No!!" very firmly and even thumped (gently) her nose with his fingers, he had to pry her jaw off of the food to get her to let go. Even after that she showed no shame or regret, just duitfully allowed herself to be led away to her crate so he could finish his lunch. Her crate is turning into a punishment, which I hate, but I also hate the idea of locking her up every time we want to eat or clean the kitchen or cook (She tried to climb into the stove the other day when I was putting a chicken in and I had to tackle her to get her away from the hot stove)

Any advice on how to get some energy/excitment out of her so we can actually move forward in training? Any tips at all would be appreciated! Thank you!

Answer
First, stop correcting her physically - it isn't working anyway, and she has no idea what you do want her to do or not do.  Secondly, dogs do not understand "no".  DO crate her when there is food about - the reason is that you don't want her to practice the unwanted behaviors of grabbing and counter surfing.  Keep in mind that a reinforcement is anything the dog wants.  So, part of your job is to figure out what motivates her.  She may not care for store bought treats, so try bits of liverwurst.  If she doesn't like tennis balls, would she like tug?  This sounds like a dog that has had her own way, with little interaction with, or need for, humans.  So, you do have your work cut out for you.  Begin by hand feeding her meals to her, kibble by kibble. Never free feed a dog like this.  You need to become more important to her.  Next, when you do go back to feeding her from a bowl, make her sit and wait for the bowl to hit the floor before she comes forward to eat.  If she moves before the bowl goes down, you simply raise it.  If she keeps moving and will not wait, put the food away for 15 minutes, then try again.  If she still moves and will not wait, put the food away till the next feeding time;-)  (Of course, seek help from a trainer if this goes on for more than two days - do not withhold food for more time than that, and never limit the dog's water).  
Next, teach her to pay attention and look at you when you say her name.  Wait till she is facing away from you.  Say her name in a cheery voice.  If she looks at you, toss her a small piece of chicken (for this, you want something good, not just her same old boring kibble).  Do this several times per day.  If she doesn't look at you, don't fret.  Just be more "sing song-y" and excited the next time you try the name game.  This is just a start, but it may help you connect with the dog well enough to embark on some clicker training.