The Hill News

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday helped resurrect an old story about Mitt Romney that his GOP rival Newt Gingrich recently unearthed in an ad.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) tweeted: ".@MittRomney Our family drives 1700 miles each summer w/ our kids, our dogs & our cat & guess what? Everybody rides inside the car! #seamus"

{mosads}Seamus is the name of the Romney family's dog who in 1983 rode in what Romney described as "This is a completely airtight kennel" on top of the family vehicle on a road trip from Boston to Ontario.

"He enjoyed himself," Romney told Fox News of the incident, in a clip included on a recent video by Gingrich's campaign. "We loved the dog, it was where he was comfortable. We had 5 kids inside the car, and my guess is he liked it a lot better inside his kennel than he would have liked it inside."

The story was first reported by The Boston Globe in 2007 during Romney's first bid for the Republican nomination.