Allergic reaction, red bumps & splotches on groin, ears & snout

The quick and dirty summary:
Are Golden Retriever's allergic to spiders, roaches, or other bugs that could cause a severe allergic reaction that causes red welps and/or splotches on the inner ears, front and surrounding snout and groin area?

Could a Golden Retriever or any other dog suffer from fear/anxiety enough to cause a physical allergic reaction as described above?

Can an Armadillo transmit rabies or other allergen or disease that could cause a dog to break out in big red hives and itch?

Typically how long do you have to give a 105 lb dog Benadryl before his reaction begins to subside enough so he can relax and the splotches from the reaction go away?

Diet has not changed. This just occurred one night as we were sitting in our living room. I am not positive the last time he was outside before the reaction occurred, but I think he was last out 2 or 3 hours prior.


The Long Story Details:
Yesterday of course at midnight we had to bring Taz (8 year Golden Retriever) to the vet 24 hour emergency care cause for some reason he started acting strange. He was inside for a couple hours since his last outside break and all of a sudden started getting extremely hyper as if he was in fast forward mode with all of his normal habits except that he was also furiously trying to scratch his snout against the floor. I let him out and he did the same thing against the concrete and the grass. He kept pranching around and would sit by each of us and then look at us as if we should do something and he'd visit each of us repeatedly, lay down, get up, etc.. many many times. I finally looked at him with a flashlight close up and he was breaking out all over the tip of his snout with big lumpy bumpys that were getting very red. His snout under the hair was wrinkling up from it and the front corners of his eyes were swelling. He had nothing new in his diet and had eaten last around 4pm. I didn't realize till later that his inner ears and groin area were also breaking out. We gave him 4 benadryl (I hear its 1mg per lb of weight and he's 105 lbs now; and very big boned). This seemed to help after 1 hour, but we still took him to the vet emergency service anyway.

At the emergency vet place they gave him a shot of Dex which I'm told is steroids and didn't give him more benadryl since we'd already done it an hour prior. They advised us to keep him on benadryl 4 pills every 8 hours. We'd misunderstood and thought they meant "we can give him it every 8 hours" rather than a direction to GIVE it to him every 8. Having cleared those directions up tonight he's breaking out slightly (not as bad, but still enough to where he cannot rest at all) again we've noticed him with red splotches. We've given him another 4 benadryl and waited a couple hours and he rested for about 3 hours and now he's at it again all over the house. We gave him 1 more benadryl to supplement the 4 other pills cause its 3:30 AM and we don't know what else to do. He's been in fast forward mode all night and to us he seems warmer than usual, but we do not know what his temperature or heartrate should be. The vet didn't mention he had a temperature last night and they did take his temp.

Tonight he is not itching his snout cause the welps are not as bad, but he continually is shaking his ears back and forth and I mean he's doing it every 1 - 3 minutes. Sometimes he finds a way to rest for a while, but you can tell he is antsy and isn't resting well. He will stand up and stare at the wall or into another room or under a chair or into the kitchen for a while too as if he is seeing something that isn't there. Its kinda freaky and made me wonder about rabies, though he has not shown any hints of violence at all and he had his shot in May 2008. Perhaps though since he's in "fast forward" mode all his senses are heightened and if he's starring off at something sharply like he has been it could be his hearing is heightened and him hearing the slightest things that are causing him to stare intently.

We also have this Armadillo in the back yard (or we did) that I know for some reason he seems scared of though he did try to attack it the other day. We saw it burying itself in a hole at the fence in the back yard and Taz tried to grab it with his mouth and got his snout onto the back of the armadillo's back end. Can an Armadillo transmit a disease or allergy just by touching it like that with Taz's nose and mouth? Taz will not go to the back yard to do his business anymore. I had to pull him with all my force today (on the leech) to get him to get comfortable with it again and he was a dead weight at the porch. He's moved where he does his #2 business to closer to the house and that is not like him at all. He will go out to the porch, stare at the back of the yard and then act crazy pranching back and forth around near the house until he does his business. Its as if he is too scared to go do his business in the normal spot and just scared of the Armadillo or thinking that its not his own territory anymore and it belongs to the Armadillo. The day Taz got his snout on the Armadillo's back end we put a board over the hole and some bricks. It rained all day the following day and flooded it out and we haven't seen the Armadillo there since, but Taz still was/is looking for it especially when i got him to go back there with the leech last night. I wanted to show him it wasn't there anymore, but I swear he's got some kind of anxiety about this animal and perhaps him and it got into a fight out there when we weren't watching and now is freaked out. Strangely enough now he has been sleeping in our bedrooms (tonight and last night) and he normally sleeps in "his spot" in the living room.

I was wondering if he maybe got bit by a bug while he was laying on the floor in the living room, but we searched actively for bugs and didn't find any last night.

The Emergency Care Vet says he needs a allergy panel run at his normal vet. So thats what I plan to do in 5 hours this morning. It has been a long night that started with his recurring reaction and then a bath which we hoped would help him relax, but seemed to make him worse even though we used luke warm to cold water.

[searcherrr]

Also, if anyone qualified or with experience would like to see I can provide good photos from when he had his outbreak last night if that will help with the guesses.

[Massimo02]

This is the same thing going on with my (8 year olg Schnauzer) Massimo. I took him to the vet yersteday, Vet gave him a cortizon/antihistamine medication, he had 2 doses yesterday. this morning he appears to be worse. his eyes are really swollen and red bumps are all over, his snout is a vivid red color with bumps,he has red bloches all over his body, and his body is exstremly hot.I gave him another cool bath trying to col him down,  I am going back to the vet this morning.  We too found out that we have an armadillo in our yard, found 2 burrow this monring. I wonder if the armadillo leave a trace of somehting behaind that causes dog this sever allergic reaction.

Ps. the running is caused by the pain and disconfort the pets have with this reaction and they are trying to get away from it.