diff --git a/doc/user-guide/io.rst b/doc/user-guide/io.rst
index bf8b1870572..5b3d7a324d2 100644
--- a/doc/user-guide/io.rst
+++ b/doc/user-guide/io.rst
@@ -1047,6 +1047,9 @@ We can convert a ``Dataset`` (or a ``DataArray``) to a dict using
 
 .. ipython:: python
 
+    ds = xr.Dataset({"foo": ("x", np.arange(30))})
+    ds
+
     d = ds.to_dict()
     d