While thinking about creating this introductory mystery for you I did some research about common techniques used by many cache owners. Some geocaching mysteries may even use more than one method to solve them. Three popular ones that you might see involve a variation of Bacon's cipher, Binary, or Morse code. A brief description of each follows.
Bacon's cipher or the Baconian cipher is a message encoding devised by Francis Bacon in 1605. It is considered a steganographic method because the message is concealed in the presentation of text, rather than its content.
Traditionally, to encode a message, each letter of the text is replaced by a group of five of the letters 'A' or 'B'. This replacement is a 5-bit binary (two part) encoding for each letter.
Binary code represents text, computer processing instruction, or other using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number system. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, known as bits, to each character, instruction, etc. For example, a binary string of eight bits can represent any of 256 possible values and can, therefore, represent a wide variety of different items.
The modern binary number system, the basis for binary code, was invented by Gottfried Leibniz in 1689. He created a system consisting of rows of zeros and ones. During this time period, Leibniz had not yet found a use for this system. Binary systems predating Leibniz also existed in the ancient world.
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse one of the inventors of the telegraph.
International Morse Code encodes the 26 basic Latin letters of A through Z, one accented Latin letter (É), numbers, and a few punctuation and procedural signals. There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters. The dit duration is the basic unit of measurement in Morse code. The duration of a dah is three times the duration of a dit. Each dit or dah within an encoded character is followed by a space, equal to the dit. The letters of a word are separated by the space of duration equal to three dits, and words are separated by a space equal to seven dits. Morse code can be sent by being transmitted by an on-off key system medium such as electric current, radio waves, visible light, or sound waves.
Now, back to our topic of cats and dogs. The playful characters are representing one of the ideas presented above. It's up to you to decide which one it is and then figure out how to decode where they want you to visit to find the physical cache container.
🐕😺
😺😺🐕😺
🐕🐕🐕
😺😺🐕
😺🐕😺
🐕🐕🐕😺😺
😺🐕😺😺😺
🐕🐕😺😺
😺
😺🐕😺
🐕🐕🐕
😺😺😺😺🐕
😺🐕😺🐕😺🐕
🐕😺😺😺😺
🐕🐕🐕
🐕😺
😺
😺
😺😺
🐕🐕😺
😺😺😺😺
🐕
😺🐕😺😺😺
😺🐕🐕
😺
😺😺😺
🐕
😺🐕🐕🐕🐕
😺😺🐕🐕🐕
🐕
😺😺😺😺
😺🐕😺
😺
😺
😺🐕😺😺😺
🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕
🐕🐕😺😺😺
😺🐕😺🐕😺🐕
🐕😺
😺😺
🐕😺
😺
😺😺😺😺😺
😺😺😺
😺😺
🐕😺😺🐕
Congratulations to Hwy88 and his sidekick for solving the mystery and being FTF!