What a tribute to a departed friend. As for trying to exhume the body, I have heard of such a thing, but don't know to what purpose.

Recently I took a cat to be put down for some elderly friends. When I returned with his body, the man had dug the grave. After burying him, his owner put a large stone slab over the grave. He said it wasn't just to keep dogs from digging in the grave, but to keep the other cats from digging. He said he'd seen it happen before, so now all the graves in the cat cemetery have slabs over them. The other cats, even a couple who have come after, visit the graves periodically and just sit around on the stones.