Popliteal artery is very short and continues the femoral artery over the posterior capsular ligament of the stifle joint detaches the posterior tibial artery and gets under cover of the popliteus muscle and is continued as anterior tibial artery. It furnishes branches to the gastrocnemius and superficial flexor of the digits.
Posterior tibial artery is a very slender vessel, which runs down on the posterior face of the popliteus muscle and supplies popliteus and deep flexor of the digits.
Anterior tibial artery continues the popliteal artery and runs under the popliteus and deep flexor crosses the upper part of the lateral border of the tibia passes through tibio-fibular arch passes successively under the origins of the lateral digital extensor, peroneus longus and between the muscles and bone. Here it gives off a number of collateral branches to the muscle of the dorsolateral group. It then gains the lateral face of the tibia.
It runs downwards on the lateral border of the tibialis anterior and between this muscle and the bone in company with the deep peroneal nerve it runs downwards passes over the anterior ligament of the tarsus and divides into perforating tarsal and dorsal metatarsal arteries.
The perforating tarsal artery passes backwards through the vascular canal in the tarsal bones reaches the posterior face of the large metatarsal bone and unites with the branches from the medial and lateral plantar arteries to form the proximal plantar arch between the bone and suspensory ligament. From the ventral face of this arch a small deep plantar metatarsal artery descends on the plantar groove of the bone to the distal plantar arch.
The dorsal metatarsal artery descends in the dorsal metatarsal groove in company with the veins and the deep peroneal nerve gives off branches to the extensor brevis detaches at the lower third, a perforating metatarsal artery which passes to the posterior face of the large metatarsal bone and unites with the branches of the medial and lateral plantar superficial metatarsal arteries to form the distal plantar arch. The dorsal metatarsal artery continues downwards as the dorsal common digital artery, which enters the interdigital space and divides into two branches. These branches unite with the like branches of the plantar common digital artery to form the two proper digital arteries one for each digit.
The plantar common digital artery arises from distal plantar arch and divides into two branches, which unite with similar branches of the dorsal common digital artery to form the proper digital arteries. It also anastomoses with the abaxial digital arteries.
