Landslides caused by rain often take the form of earth flows when they reach their final stage in river valleys. Conventional steel grid- or slit-type sabo dams were originally developed for debris flows containing boulders at their leading edge and do not contain earth flows as effectively as they contain the flows for which they were designed. If the volume behind these types of dams is not quickly filled by a debris flow, subsequent earth flows pass through the dam, because these subsequent flows are composed of less coarse rock and gravel. Therefore, we designed and built several model sabo dams with closely-spaced horizontal units. We then conducted hydraulic experiments focusing on the effects of these closely-spaced horizontal units, with the objective of ensuring that they capture materials in the later phases of debris flows. Experimental results indicated that this new design of sabo dam is better at capturing finer sediments in both debris flows and earth flows.