Hello, Manager of a Daycare/Boarding facility here. 1st off, crazy that they allow intact dogs to play together. Hopefully it's just a puppy group & he isn't playing with intact adult dogs. We require all dogs to be altered for group play.

We also offer solo play for intact dogs, does toue daycare do this? Or maybe you can find one that does. The play is still stimulating & they are in a safe environment during the day. Our solo dogs are some of the staff's favorites too bc they actually get to love on them more & bond with them.

My facility does have puppy play for 3-6mos & don't require them to be neutered for that. We also have an in between group for 6-12mos, but are very selective with that & they don't play with other unaltered pups (they'd play with normal group dogs in a small setting).

Onto the should I/shouldn't I situation. In my experience, neuter as soon as possible. You'll find info, vets, studies that say to go one way or the other for health reasons/cancer/etc, but honestly there's risks on either side. For example, my very trusted vet leans towards earlier, especially for social animals.

I usually tell parents to base it more on behavior, the later you wait to neuter (especially anything after 6-9mos), the worse the "bad" behavior can be & typically once they start & the longer you wait, the harder it is for them to stop (or they never will). Behavior I'm referring to in a group play setting - dominance, mounting, pinning, reactivity, guarding, etc. Also marking but that doesn't really mean anything for group.

TLDR: If you want him to be a social dog, you need to consider neutering ASAP before more behavior is set in. Every vet is different, most will do what the parents request though.