default route of br0 gets dev eth0 instead of dev br0

On my LinuxMint laptop, i have a recurring problem with my bridge br0. On each start up, the default route does not work. The routing table uses eth0 instead of br0 probably because of dhcp. i roam with the laptop so turning off dhcp is not an option. i need to access VMs at home, work, and on the road. Bridges work with dhcp, but for some reason eth0 is not behaving like a manual interface.

$ip route
default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0

The internet is available as soon as:

$sudo ip route del default
$sudo ip route add default via 192.168.1.1 dev br0

Why is it using the 'dev eth0' when it needs to use 'dev br0'?