Using the glossaries and glossary-longragged packages (In a memoir document) as well as a custom style I found by Googling:
\newglossarystyle{dottedlocations}{%
\glossarystyle{list}%
\renewcommand*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
\item[\glsentryitem{##1}\glstarget{##1}{##2}]
\emph{##3}\ignorespaces\unskip\leaders\hbox to 2.9mm{\hss.}\hfill##5}%
\renewcommand*{\glsgroupskip}{}%
}
\glossarystyle{dottedlocations}
(Source)
My problem is that several of my abbreviations are used rather often, which makes the \leaders sometimes repeat the \hss. zero times, as demonstrated below for polydopamine:

I tried to insert a few dots manually before the \leaders, which lead to the appearance of a gap between those dots and the leaders. So the question is: Is there a way to force a \leaders to repeat a following \hbox a certain minimum of times? i.e. is there a way to force the \leaders to repeat the \hbox at least three times before expanding if there is a need?
\ignorespacesdoes exactly nothing. Its function is to expand the next token repeatedly until an unexpandable token remains; if it is a space it is gobbled and the procedure restarts from the next token, otherwise it stops. Since\unskipis unexpandable, the procedure stops immediately and nothing is done. – egreg Jun 06 '14 at 19:55