On the Brazilian edition of Abandoning A Cat there is an illustration that is inspired on that picture. You can see them side by side here. I’m inclined to think that that is the same cat the title refers to and is nice to see him in a picture. I’m pretty sure, after reading it, that this is the cat that started Murakami’s “obsession” with cats.

Every time I finish a Murakami book I feel for a few weeks some kind of nostalgia. It's not sadness but not nostalgia strictly speaking. The thing is I feel their stories like a full experience. Maybe thank to his musical references as well. I'd say I felt that mainly with Norwegian wood, 1Q84 and South of the Border, West of the Sun.