Proof

you can't keep a good man / dog grass down. There is a story about a farmer whose old dog fell into a dry well. After assessing the situation the farmer sympathized with the dog but decided that neither the dog nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead he planned to bury the old dog in the well and put him out of his misery. When the farmer began shoveling initially the old dog panicked. But then it dawned on the mutt that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he could shake it off and step up. This he did blow after blow. “Shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up!” he repeated to encourage himself. It wasn’t long before the dog, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly out of the well. What he thought would bury him actually benefited him— hey ho!

P.S. at Himself's suggestion the grass could then take hold, not of the dog but the dirt!