[1] For six years Luke gained widespread popularity among movie audiences, appearing in one- and two-reelers for Keystone Studios, Comique Film Company, and Joseph M. Schenck Productions.

[2] The Staffordshire terrier shared screen time not only with Arbuckle and Durfee but also with other stars and top supporting players of the silent era, including Mabel Normand, Buster Keaton, Al St. John, Molly Malone, Joe Roberts, Betty Compson, and Edgar Kennedy.

Several sources about the dog's early life state that Lucas gave the puppy to Minta in lieu of extra money or hazard pay she had earned for performing a dangerous stunt in one of his motion pictures.

[4] While Luke was originally given to Minta Durfee, Roscoe Arbuckle quickly became the dominant figure in the dog's daily life, for it was "Fatty" who invested the most time training the animal to do tricks.

[9] Earlier that same month the widely read, New York-based trade journal Reel Life had reported that "Fatty, his wife [Minta] and Luke are among the most popular photoplayers in California".

[9] One of the interesting visual effects in Fatty's Plucky Pup relied on the use of a treadmill in combination with the carousel-like "cyclorama" often used by cameramen at Keystone Studios' facilities in Edendale, California.

The dog in reality was running on a treadmill positioned between a stationary camera and the cyclorama's rotating platform with background scenery hand-painted on a huge central cylinder or hub.

[12][b] In some film references, including the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Fatty's Tintype Tangle is listed among the 1915 Keystone shorts in which Luke performs or at least appears.

[2] However, full surviving copies of that film available for viewing via the Internet Archive, as well as at some other online sources, do not show the dog in any scenes, either as part or the story or even visible in background shots.

In its review of The Butcher Boy in April 1917, the entertainment trade paper Variety compliments the film and states, "The cast fits the star [Arbuckle], and not the least important member is 'Luke,' the bull terrier.

In July 1970—over four decades after Luke's death—Arbuckle biographer Stuart Oderman interviewed Grace Wiley, who was a former vaudevillian and an employee of Keystone while the dog with the "soft brown coat and white front" worked there.

She also observed that the studio head's regard for the talented animal was so high that he often had the terrier chauffeured to various locations in some of the finest automobiles owned by his company:Mr. Sennett used to call that dog his most dependable performer.