In having chocolates over the years I have seen and learned one thing that is good. The eyes that someone sees on a choc dog at 6 mos. is not the eyes they will see at a year and surely not what they will have at two years. Some are darker the whole time. Some change as they age a little, and of course, there would be those of all colors who just plain have light colored eyes, not just the choc. Just wonder who sees a dog and judges to quickly or parts with a nice pup saying eyes are too light for me.
You judge the dogs on the day. You can't ask yourself what this dog might or might not be like in the future or near future, etc. You judge him on the day against what you have in your ring. If you don't use him one time doesn't mean you won't another.
You don't fault judge(at least a good judge doesn't), you judge the overall dog.
No dog is perfect. If the most serious issue with your dog is a light eye, you may be doing better than some. I have a chocolate bitch whose eyes didn't fully turn their "adult" color until she was 3 and whelped her first litter. I can't image how it's related, but after that, they were as dark brown as her coat is.
I have some other chocolate dogs, and one is lighter than the other, but both have brown eyes that match their coats. With these, I saw the final eye color at about 1 1/2.
Time and lines play alot into it. With experience, you can tell what's going to stay light and what will change. I think the lighter the eye as a pup, the lighter it will be as an adult.
With chocolates, you really don't know what eye color is going to do! If you know what your lines typically do, you have an estimate I guess. I had a litter of chocolates, that when their eyes opened they were brown already, and some where they were as blue as the Montana sky when they opened, some darken with age, some stay a light brown, really hard to predict!
