In your analogy, what dog got what cookie for jumping through what hoop? From context it would seem you're saying that Schmidt recieved the email with the smile

In your analogy, what dog got what cookie for jumping through what hoop? From context it would seem you're saying that Schmidt recieved the email with the smiley as a "reward". It wasn't sent to him though, but to some HR person at Apple (probably the one who escalated the issue to Jobs).