As, the cortical area of the brain are responsible for the stimulus discrimination. Stimulus discrimination are defined as the ability of the one stimulus differentiated with others stimuli. According to the research, cortical area of the brain leading issue in stimuli discrimination. Therefore, while training a monkey for the stimuli discrimination the cortical area increased the size.
From what i know, the feet of an animal should always be on the table. This is due to the fact that aside from health reason's, the animal usually feels more comfortable not on it's back.