Great solutions all, but the overall winner is Ikerous with a very clever $932 solution which sees the dillo limp out of the way just in time.
$932 Ikerous
$970 CN Player / ioncorpse / mikee7
Not many solutions that actually involved shielding the dillo, although amusingly I think the name threw a few people off the more obvious avoidance solutions for their first submissions.
No non-vet players