Common sense
says to me that eye color and coat color are related - look at merle dogs with blue eyes - white dogs with blue eyes. But that's just a "feeling". Here's what I got from google.
Eye color, from just a cursory google search:
Eye Color in Dogs
by Bonnie Dalzell © 1996 with contributions by Terrill Schukraft
Eye color in wild canids is generally light, wolves have eyes with pale irises. In fact that is part of why the stare of a wolf is unnerving to humans. Most humans respond to a direct, fixed stare by feeling threatened and when the iris of an eye is light then it is quite easy to tell exactly where the light eyed individual is staring. I (BD) personally beleive this is the major reason that most standards on European dogs call for a dark eyed dog.
In domestic dogs there are several genetic factors that influence eye color. Most of the genes are tied into whole body color. If you are not aquainted with dog coat color genetics or terminology you may wish to read our coat color article first.
The coat color genes which influence eye color include merle, spotting (S series), liver dilute (also called brown dilute - the B locus) and blue dilute (the D locus) genes, while others - less well understood - affect only eye color.
Liver dilute (B locus) dogs tend to have yellow eyes while blue dilute (D locus) dogs have bluish, bluish tan or almost silver eyes. Dogs with the merle gene may have eyes of different colors, one blue - one brown or eyes with different colors in them - patches of blue in a brown eye, for example.
Within most breeds there is also a range of intensity of eye color which is independent of the coat color genes. Thus with intense selection one can produce a dark eyed blue dilute greyhound or whippet. However the eyes will be a dark blue brown - not the typical dark brown of the non-diluted dog. It is my feeling - from my breeding program - that the genes that intensify eye color are generally recessive. Crosses of non-dilute dogs with lighter eyes to dogs of similar coat color with darker eyes frequently result in light eyes. The difficulty in studying this is that the coat color genes also influence eye color and so studies of eye color intensity inheritance need to be conducted in lineages in which coat color does not vary. Please contact me, [Bonnie Dalzell] if you have breeding records that would be useful in clarifying this matter that you wish to share [with credit].
And another one
http://abnormality.purpleflowers.net/genetics/eyes.htm:
EYE COLOURS
The default eye colour for dogs is brown:
However, a number of genes can affect eye colour.
AMBER EYES
Amber eyes usually occur when the eumelanin in the coat is diluted or modified by the recessive genes in the B or D series. In other words, all liver dogs (bb) have amber eyes, and so do blue and isabella dogs (dd). Occasionally dogs with black pigment also have amber eyes, but in general they're found just on livers and dilutes.
Amber eyes vary from light brown (overlapping with the lighter eyes sometimes found in black-pigmented dogs) to yellow, yellow-green or grey.
Liver agouti/grizzle Siberian Husky with amber eyes.
A recessive red (rr) Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Its pink nose and eye rims and amber eyes give it away as being liver (bb) rather than black.
Blue (dd) sable or creeping tan Italian Greyhound with very light, greyish eyes which appear to match its coat.
Isabella (dd) Slovakian Pointer with very light eyes which also appear to match its coat.
Interesting stuff here - the site has pictures included. Glad it's my 1/2 day off today - you guys do some interesting talking on this site.