Besides the red and apricot family of colors, brown seems to be a color that almost always fades a lot as poodles grow up. True dark brown poodles aren’t very common. Seeing that you’re already seeing lighter hairs at 8 months in that quantity, it is almost certain your sweet boy will lighten. I think it becomes most apparent by age 2, and by age 5 you’ll see the true color he’ll lighten to. He might ending up having lots of different shades of brown. If he has lots of blacks in his pedigree, it helps a bit to hold some of the darker color. I am confident that in time you will grow to LOVE whatever color he becomes.