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I will preface my post by stating that my wife and I used to own a pet-friendly vacation cottage. We were pet owners ourselves and agree that (in general) there is more damage caused by children. I am of the opinion, however, that accommodations should and must charge a pet fee. I can't say how much is "reasonable". We charged $25 per night on an average nightly rate of $250, so about 10% for a pet fee.

None of our guests ever complained about the fee but I suppose it is possible that they didn't like it and just didn't speak up. From our point of view the pet fee helps to pay for all of the "pet extras": our securely fenced "dog run" through the trees, which required maintenance every year not to mention the grassy area within the dog run (playing dogs are fun to watch but they tear up the turf). Our separate "dog beach", complete with poop bags, even though many people never used them and in the end it was up to us to clean up after the dogs. The huge amount of cleaning supplies we needed to clean up after pets (vacuum bags alone cost us a fortune, so did mop heads).

From a practical standpoint we can tell guests they are responsible for picking up after their dog, but if they don't do it, how would we ever "prove" that the dog poop was theirs and not some other guests? We end up doing the cleaning because we don't want the other guests to see it. That is only one example of the work that goes in to allow pets. We did consider our cottage to be very much "pet-friendly" but there is no way we would have allowed dogs even for $10 or $15 a night. I can't speak for other hotels or cottages or resorts but in my opinion there is more to being "pet-friendly" than the amount of money charged for your pet. Also I know that we personally lost a few bookings because we allowed pets.

By the way, we used to have dogs too. We paid the pet fees because we understand them. Maybe one way to look at it is to see how much the pet fees are in relation to the overall nightly fee. If I were asked to pay a $50 pet fee per night for a $100 room, I would be outraged. A $50 pet fee per night on a $300 a night cottage in a pet-friendly environment (room to run, dog beach, whatever) I might be more willing to accept.

Just my two cents.