diff --git a/pandas/_libs/testing.pyx b/pandas/_libs/testing.pyx
index 679cde9932a7a..a8cfbd558aa50 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/testing.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/testing.pyx
@@ -21,7 +21,13 @@ from pandas.core.dtypes.missing import (
 
 
 cdef bint isiterable(obj):
-    return hasattr(obj, '__iter__')
+    if hasattr(obj, '__iter__'):
+        try:
+            iter(obj)
+            return True
+        except (TypeError, IndexError) as e:
+            return False
+    return False
 
 
 cdef bint has_length(obj):
diff --git a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
index 46bc6d82b55db..cc492eacdd550 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
@@ -126,6 +126,9 @@ def size(self):
     def shape(self):
         return self._values.shape
 
+    def __getitem__(self, item):
+        return self._values[item]
+
 
 # collect all objects to be tested for list-like-ness; use tuples of objects,
 # whether they are list-like or not (special casing for sets), and their ID
diff --git a/pandas/tests/util/test_assert_almost_equal.py b/pandas/tests/util/test_assert_almost_equal.py
index ab53707771be6..3384820631f48 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/util/test_assert_almost_equal.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/util/test_assert_almost_equal.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
     Timestamp,
 )
 import pandas._testing as tm
+from pandas.tests.dtypes.test_inference import MockNumpyLikeArray
 
 
 def _assert_almost_equal_both(a, b, **kwargs):
@@ -458,3 +459,16 @@ def test_assert_almost_equal_iterable_values_mismatch():
 
     with pytest.raises(AssertionError, match=msg):
         tm.assert_almost_equal([1, 2], [1, 3])
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "obj",
+    [
+        MockNumpyLikeArray(np.ndarray((2,) * 1)),
+        MockNumpyLikeArray(np.array([])),
+        MockNumpyLikeArray(np.array(2)),
+    ],
+    ids=["duck-ndarray-1d", "duck-ndarray-1d-empty", "duck-ndarray-0d"],
+)
+def test_assert_almost_equal_not_iterable(obj):
+    tm.assert_almost_equal(obj, obj)