Is there a straightforward way of getting the SOA information for a specific domain, typically the local one, from a DNS server?

As background, I'm looking for a way to perform a reasonable check of the health of the local LAN, before trying to recover from a database error caused either by a physical network problem or by server failure. I can't speak for other types of connection, but
TPQConnection.Connected:=FALSE will sit there indefinitely if the Ethernet plug is pulled out from the back of the computer.