Puppy: Your New Family Member
Discover the joy of owning a Leonberger puppy from Leonrua Kennels. Our puppies are raised with love and care, ensuring they are well-socialised and healthy. We provide comprehensive support to help you welcome your new furry friend into your home.
How we choose a leo mating
A structured approach to selecting mating combinations that prioritises genetic diversity, health, temperament and pedigree.
Meet Our
Leonberger Puppies
At Leonrua Kennels, we take immense pride in our Leonberger puppies. Each puppy is raised with love and care, as a member of our household ensuring they are well-socialised and healthy. We are dedicated to matching our puppies with loving, responsible homes and have a stringent vetting process. Get in contact with us if you want to add a bundle of fluffy joy to your whānau at some point in the future!
Discover the unique qualities
of our Leonberger puppies at
Leonrua Kennels.
At Leonrua Kennels, we provide comprehensive details about each Leonberger puppy to ensure you make an informed decision. Our puppies come with full health clearances, detailed pedigree information, and temperament assessments, so you know exactly what to expect from your new family member. We are committed to transparency and quality.
- Health Clearances: Each puppy undergoes thorough health screenings.
- Pedigree Information: Trace the lineage of your Leonberger.
- Temperament Assessments: Understand your puppy's personality.
- Microchip: Secure identification of your puppy.
- Vaccination: Increased immunity for common canine diseases.
- Parasite Control: Helping ensure your puppy has the best possible start to life.
Their First Eight Weeks
From Birth to Eight Weeks
A carefully supported start, with each stage building on the last.
Our Approach
Guided by Puppy Culture
We use the fundamentals of Puppy Culture to guide how we raise our litters. Experiences are introduced gradually and at developmentally appropriate stages, helping puppies build confidence, resilience and positive associations with people, animals and the wider world.
Mum + newborn puppies
Week 0
Birth, first checks & settling with mum
The first hours are about warmth, feeding, breathing, bonding and close observation. Each puppy is checked as it is born and monitored as it settles with mum and begins nursing.
The litter remains in the whelping box in our lounge, where both mum and puppies can be watched closely. An incubator and oxygen concentrator are available if needed. We are lucky to have a fantastic vet available 24/7.
Warmth · Feeding · Breathing · Bonding · Observation
Weeks 1–3
Security, handling & early sensory experience
For the first three weeks, the puppies remain in the whelping box in our lounge, with someone close by 24 hours a day. Ronan previously worked for three years in a veterinary clinic, so careful observation of mum and puppies is a normal part of these early weeks.
The television is kept on, providing changing light, voices, music and everyday household sounds from an early age, while gentle handling and regular human contact become part of daily life.
Close support from the beginning.
Whelping box / lounge
First food / weaning
Week 3
Beginning to wean
At around three weeks, soft food is introduced and the gradual transition towards independent eating begins. Weaning happens slowly alongside continued nursing, allowing the puppies to become familiar with new tastes, textures and eating together.
Weeks 4–5
The world gets bigger
During the day, the puppies begin spending time in our Puppy Palace in the orchard. Their environment expands naturally, while people and the wider Leonrua pack remain part of everyday life.
Puppy Palace / orchard
Orchard Life
Grass, plants, fresh air, changing weather, new surfaces, outdoor sounds and the chickens nearby.
The Wider Pack
Carefully supervised visits introduce the puppies to adult Leonbergers beyond their mother.
People Still Matter
We spend plenty of time with them outside — playing, handling, observing and sharing new experiences.
Week 6
First vet visit
At six weeks, the puppies have their first veterinary visit for a full health examination, vaccination and microchipping.
It is also another useful new experience: travelling away from home, entering a different environment and being handled by unfamiliar people.
First vet visit
New owners / puppy interaction
Week 7
New people & growing independence
By seven weeks, individual personalities are becoming increasingly clear. Future puppy owners begin visiting, giving the puppies more opportunities to interact with different people.
At the same time, they continue developing confidence and becoming increasingly independent from mum.
Ready for home
Week 8
Ready for Home
At eight weeks, our puppies are ready to leave Leonrua and begin life with their new families. By then, they have experienced household life, outdoor environments, other dogs, different people, everyday sounds, veterinary handling and steadily increasing independence.
The first eight weeks are only the beginning.
Our aim is to give each puppy the strongest possible foundation for the life and learning still ahead.
Your Leonrua Puppy Journey
So you want a Leonrua puppy?
Finding the right homes matters just as much to us as planning the right mating. We want to get to know you, understand the home and lifestyle you can offer, and make sure a Leonberger is genuinely the right fit.
Step 1
Get in touch
Contact us by email, phone or social media message and tell us a little about yourself and why you are interested in a Leonrua puppy.
Step 2
Complete our puppy questionnaire
We will usually respond within 24 hours — unless your message has somehow found its way into our spam folder!
We will send you our puppy questionnaire so we can learn more about your household, lifestyle, experience with dogs and what you are looking for in a Leonberger.
Step 3
Let's talk
Once we have received your completed questionnaire, we will arrange a phone conversation. It gives both of us the chance to ask questions, talk through life with a Leonberger and discuss what you are hoping for from your future puppy.
Step 4
Meet face-to-face
Depending on where you live and where we are in the process, we may arrange a Zoom conversation so that we can meet properly rather than relying entirely on forms, emails and phone calls.
Step 5
Join the Leonrua waiting list
We will decide whether we believe a Leonberger — and a Leonrua puppy in particular — is a suitable fit for you and your household.
If we are both happy to proceed, we will invite you to join our puppy waiting list.
Ready to start?
Think a Leonrua puppy might be right for you?
The first step is simply getting in touch.