Dear Reddit,

I recently moved into a house and shortly after finally a rescued a dog from a local shelter (some sort of husky/doberman-who-knows-what mix, male, ~70 pounds, ~18 months old) about 3 weeks ago. My girlfriend and I play with him in the backyard, take him out for twice daily walks, and bring him to the dog park every other day. While we can do so more frequently over the summer, we wanted to get him ready for when both of us are out of the house more often and have a higher workload.

He is sometimes stubborn, and isn't the most eager to please, but is somewhat treat driven, but even slow about some of that. He doesn't seem to be super high energy given how much he can sleep in a day, but is very friendly and likes to play in bursts. He does seem to be high excitement and prone to distractions. He's gotten much better at recall and basic commands since we got him though.

The main issue I've been having is that he always wants to be in the garage, and even better if he can be sitting in a car ready to go to the dog park. If he can get into a car, he'll stubbornly sit there until we get the leash to drag him out of it, or have to manually start moving his body to get him to come inside. Sometimes he'll hide behind cars and stare at us, seemingly going "is it dog park time yet?" I don't think I'm a fantastic dog owner, but I've tried to look online to help guide my path, but this seems a particularly niche issue.

Is there any good way to break him of this behavior? Unfortunately the dog park is on the other side of town and relatively secluded, so I can't get him to it via other methods without driving "the usual way." I've also thought about getting him into and out of the car in other locations besides the garage, so that he doesn't associate it with "dog park time." This issue is mostly exacerbated by the fact that my girlfriend and I use the area for storage, so are in and out of it constantly, so having him sneak behind us into it, and then refuse to move is annoying- let alone worrying since the area can get quite hot as the summer heats up.

Thanks for any help!

PS: I've tried using some treats to get him to get out of the car, with "come here" style commands, and he doesn't want to move. Sometimes I do think it's just exhaustion, since he does do recall when leaving the dog park, and will want to lay in the back of the car afterwards. I'm afraid in these situations that it isn't healthy due to the heat that can build up in the garage once I turn off my cars AC.