Whoa boy, DogCarGate just won’t end, and now it’s Mitt Romney’s wife Ann who’s speaking out and defending the family’s practice of traveling with their dog Seamus on top of the car. The Romneys had previously gotten flack for admitting to a strapping Seamus (in a crate) to the roof of the car during a 1983 family trip from Boston to Ontario. And in an interview with Diane Sawyer earlier this week, Ann Romney claimed the dog loved traveling that way.

“The dog loved it,” Ann Romney said. “He would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for two weeks.”

As for the time the dog got sick during the ride, defecating and puking down the front of the car? That wasn’t from the ride, that was because, said Ann, “Once, he — we traveled all the time — and he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs.”